Virginia City! Boom town on the wild Nevada frontier! Atop the silver-rich mountains of the Comstock Lode were the desperate dreamers, thousands of men and women lured by the glittering promise of limitless wealth. But as the bountiful mother lode is mined, the nation itself is being torn apart by a burning confrontation that threatens to destroy America for ever.

Three nations clash as America's first wagon train travels into the heart of a crisis between England, Russia, and the United States.

Violence ignoted by the gliitter of gold. Men desperate to strike it rich. Families and farms forsaken in a wild rush West to stake a claim. String men and courageous women struggle across an untamed continent to gamble their last dollar in overnight boom towns or die bushwacked by outlaws. Some become valiant fighters in places where six-shooters keep the peace. No risk is too great, no depravity too low--when men catch gold fever and dream of quick...

Virginia City, 1861. 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.

Unflagging courage took them through the valleys of the Badlands to the vast priaries of fertile, new territory. The promise of endless fields of golden wheat, great herds of prime beef cattle, fabulous empires built from railroads and mines lured the ambitiousand the brave to the uncharted country. But war cries soon echoed across the plains as mighty red nations united in a pact of blood to fight the newcomers for their sacred hunting grounds.

They are the first wagon train to cross the American continent - and forge the Oregon Trail. Five-hundred courageous men, women and children, led by mountain man Whip Holt, they have survived the Rocky Mountain winter, fierce native attacks, and countless other hardships.