A diary account of fourteen-year-old Susanna Fairchild's life in 1849, when her father succumbs to gold fever on the way to establish his medical practice in Oregon after losing his wife and money on their steamship journey from New York. Includes a historical note.

In the spring of 1851 San Francisco is booming. 12-year-old Amelia Forrester has just arrived with her family and they are eager to make a new life in Phoenix City. But the mostly male town is not that hospitable to females and Amelia decides she will earn more money as a boy. Cutting her hair and donning a cap, she joins a gang of newsboys, selling Eastern newspapers for a fortune.

In 1851 twelve-year-old Sarah is a free Black, happy living with her parents, grandparents, and brother on their own farm in Iowa; but her father has been bitten by the gold bug and wants to take the trail west to California, and after some argument it is decided that the grandparents will stay on the farm, but the rest of the family will go; the journey will be difficult and dangerous, but if they survive extreme weather, difficult terrain, illness,...