A year has passed since Connie Blair began working at Reid and Renshaw. Connie puts her art school education to use when she accompanies Georgia Cameron, an agency executive,
 to Taos, New Mexico to make sketches for the American Textile account. On the train to New Mexico, they meet archaeologist Jeff Chandler. He is going to Taos to find Twisty Schlessinger, a man who sold an artifact that a museum is interested in finding for archaeological reasons. Jeff plans to contact Mr. Percy Norman, a jewelry shop owner, who employed Twisty.

In Taos, they stay at a hotel owned by Mrs. Dolores Morgan. She has dinner with Connie, Georgia, and Jeff, during which Jeff asks Dolores if she knows Twisty. Dolores claims that she doesn't. When the two women later visit Percy's shop, he mentions that he's planning to leave the area soon.

Connie thinks someone wants to get rid Jeff when she and Georgia find him unconscious outside of Dolores' suite. Dolores believes he only fell and hit his head, but Connie thinks otherwise. Connie and Jeff learn that Twisty lives in a shanty near Black Cat Gulch. As they plan to visit Twisty, Connie notices Dolores eavesdropping. Finding the shanty empty, they begin exploring a cave that houses a mine but are driven away by gunshots. Back at the hotel, they learn that Dolores wasn't at the inn when they were out at the gulch.

Jeff rides off to the shanty alone and doesn't return. Connie forms a search party. The party rides out to Black Cat Gulch. She searches for Jeff in the cave, uncovers a counterfeiting operation, and then must escape the clutches of Jeff's kidnapper while fumbling through the dark abandoned mine.