Cross of Gold — Tim Champlin

One hundred pounds of gold, half of it in the form of a gold cross, lies buried in the ruins of a dynamited church in the ghost town of Lodestar, Nevada...

Lucinda Barkley, a kidnapped hostage of prison escapees, is rescued by part-time lawman Marc Charvein, but she's wounded in the resulting shootout. Though safe, she feels she is due some compensation for her ordeal and secretly partners with gambler Sam Stonehouse to dig up a fifty-pound gold cross and fifty pounds of bullion for themselves. The problem is the gold is stolen, so now she and Sam steal it again. Ezra Pitney, the rightful owner, finds it gone from the ruins of the church, and wrongly assumes it was taken by Marc Charvein, the man he hired to find it. From there the chase is on, with double crosses and near misses until they all come together in a wild clash aboard a Southern Pacific train bound for Los Angeles.