Mining engineer Larry Sutton has been hired by elderly, bed-ridden George Ballard to advise him on his lucrative radium mine and take over the duties of chief engineer from his now missing brother-in-law Jack Parsons. Parsons is accused of murdering the property's caretaker, Adolph Berg, whose body has been crushed and disfigured beyond recognition in the mill stamp, a powerful apparatus used to crush rock. Ballard's heirs have been informed of his grave condition and have gathered at his house in hopes of inheriting some of the dying old man's estate. However, when they start getting murdered also by a mysterious hooded killer, Larry enlists the help of the county's elderly, eccentric deputy sheriff, Tex Murdoch, who brings comic relief to this mystery/western hybrid, and helps him unmask the killer.
—duke1029@aol.com