The ranching community below the haunting Black Mesa in Arizona Territory is the setting for Sharpshod. Will Counselman was taken in as a young boy and raised by Laird McFetridge, but their relationship was always a hostile one due to McFetridge's unaccountable rages. When McFetridge is found dead, Will is arrested. In Blood on the Grass, Barton Pruit returns to Arapahoe, intent on taking up ranching on what had been his father's spread. The great cattle ranch in Spur wants him gone and the local sheriff doesn't want any trouble. He finds an ally in the local banker and falls in love with the sheriff's daughter, but this hardly seems enough to allow him to successfully defy the Spur.