When riots break out during a railroad strike in Chicago, Lieutenant Drummond and his troop of army recruits are transferred from Arizona to help quell the disturbance. Drummond and his men use western army tactics on the rioters fighting with rifles and in hand-to-hand combat until the strike leader is killed and the strikers go grudgingly back to their jobs. Charles King, who is best known for his novels of army life and Indian fighting, might best have maintained his cavalry west of the Mississippi, for his familiarity with frontier army life far exceeds his knowledge of labor relations or Chicago social conditions as displayed in Foes in Ambush.