While helping to tidy the Money Bin, Huey, Dewey and Louie notice an old steamer trunk of Scrooge McDuck's keepsakes, and ask him what his most valuable possession is.

The boys remember that Scrooge told them (in "Back to the Klondike") how the Nugget was stolen from him, and he retrieved it from Goldie O'Gilt, then took her to his claim and forced her to mine gold to show her how hard miners work to earn their living.

Meanwhile, Soapy Slick, still exiled from Canada after the events of "The King of the Klondike", sends three famous lawmen - Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and Judge Roy Bean - to rescue Goldie from Scrooge, painting him as an unscrupulous kidnapper.

At the same time, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, also recruited by Soapy, kidnap Goldie and steal Scrooge's strongbox, holding both the Nugget and the deed.

Remembering that Scrooge spent hours every night gazing at something inside the box that was even more valuable to him, she eagerly opens the folded piece of paper, and sees that it is the severed lock of her hair.

Waiting outside, the three lawmen listen to the sounds of a furious fight, which tapers off into a silence that lasts through the day and the night (surprisingly for a Disney comics story, the scene implies a sexual tryst between Scrooge and Goldie).