Lora Fitzgerald gets word from her parent's attorney, Mason Kile, that she must cross the Oregon territory and return home.

While Kile is reluctant to send for Lora, he sees no other way: He is only seeking to fulfill the last will and testament of the Fitzgeralds.

Good intentions won't make the journey for Lora easier, but she does have a mountain man from Montana and a blacksmith-turned-farmer who is closer than a brother as traveling companions.

Although she's reluctant to go, she travels from grassland to seashore, by stagecoach, barge, and railroad as she bravely seeks to get to her final destination-Fitz Landing-the home her deceased parents so carefully tended.

Even if she arrives unharmed, it will be an unfamiliar world inhabited by seamen who are capable of killing just for the fun of it. Plus, a swarthy old man named Boggs wants nothing more than to destroy Lora once and for all.