Early Whitcomb's family needs a miracle.&nbsp; Their Iowa farm has been in the family for generations, but&nbsp;a long drought has withered their savings and left them in debt.&nbsp; Meanwhile, the great Chicago and Northwestern Railroad&nbsp;wants their land, and if the Whitcombs can't pay their loans,&nbsp;the&nbsp;local banker, Judge Fuslin, will foreclose and sell the farm as his own.&nbsp;&nbsp;</DIV><DIV>&nbsp;</DIV><DIV>Early's uncle (though he's more like a brother), Jesse, thinks he has the solution: to head West and dig for gold.&nbsp;Fueled by reports of&nbsp;prospectors striking it&nbsp;rich in the Rocky Mountains, Jesse can't&nbsp;think about anything but&nbsp;gold, and his determination to&nbsp;get to&nbsp;the&nbsp;western territories&nbsp;grows stronger&nbsp;by the&nbsp;day.&nbsp; Early is wild to go with him, as much for the adventure as for the gold.&nbsp;&nbsp;But the journey costs&nbsp;money--more than the boys can afford--and when Jesse flees during the night, after being accused of a robbery, Early doesn't know what to believe.&nbsp;</DIV><DIV>&nbsp;</DIV><DIV>Then&nbsp;Jesse sends an electrifying message--that he has found gold, but his life is in danger--and Early knows he must do whatever it takes to find him, even if it means running away and joining a wagon train with a strange family.&nbsp;&nbsp;The journey is dangerous and full of hardships, and the closer&nbsp;the travelers&nbsp;get to their destination, the more ruined lives they encounter--lives consumed by the hunt for gold.&nbsp;&nbsp;Then to his horror, Early learns that Jesse has been accused of another, much bigger crime and has fled to a secret place in the mountains.&nbsp; Somehow, Early must get to him without leading&nbsp;Jesse's pursuers right to his door.&nbsp; And even if he succeeds, Early will still have to make the hardest choice of his life.&nbsp;