After recovering the governor of Montana s famous dog, Cat, in The Governor s Dog is Missing, twelve-year-old sleuths Slate Stephens and Daphne McSweeney head to the infamous Montana ghost town of Bannack. While their geologist dads prospect for a large gold mining company, Slate and Daphne encounter a pair of perplexing puzzles. Under an old classroom desk in Montana s first schoolhouse, the young detectives discover clues pointing to missing gold treasure amassed by Montana s vigilantes 150 years earlier. At the same time, a thief has absconded with two priceless Charles Russell paintings on loan to the university art museum in nearby Dillon. In Hangman s Gold, the second Slate Stephens mystery, clues and curiosity lead our two heroes to begin solving both mysteries and dig up more dirt than they can handle.