Saga of the first wagon train west toward Oregon begins in Independence, Missouri, and ends when the five hundred brave pioneers reach the great plains of Nebraska. Centers on "Whip" Holt, the ruggedly quiet leader of the caravan and Cathy van Ayl, who leaves her family behind in Missouri to travel with Whip Holt's train and perhaps win his heart.

Valor and devotion ride side by side with intrigue and bitter rivalry. Wagon master Whip Holt is desired by two women -- his wife, and Cathy van Ayl Blake, who is married to the supreme commander of the American forces in the Oregon Territory.

Major General Lee Blake must outsmart Confederate saboteurs and British agents in order to guarantee that a Nevada silver shipment safely reaches Union troops in Missouri.

From coast to coast, the railroads offered limitless opportunities to an ever growing number of workers and dreamers. In the parched Utah territory, brawny laborers, engineers and immigrants blasted tunnels through solid rock and laid countless miles of shining steel rails to link cities to frontiers, and frontiers to the future. But some would stop at nothing to halt the iron wheels of progress: rampaging tribes with rifles blazing, unscrupulous...