MARY MUHLENBERG is an ambitious sixteen-year-old who joins the California Gold Rush in 1849. But unlike her missionary parents, she exchanges her Bible for a spade. Mary longs for a better life, despite her own conscience and her father's warnings.Touched by gold fever, Mary makes an ill-advised alliance with conniving entrepreneurs from Midas, a nearby mining town. Rejecting both her father and the timely advice of a wise and respected Californio,...