Katie Rexrode decided she didn't want to get married. She wanted adventures. The kind she read about in books, the kind that it seemed only boys had. It didn't seem fair, after all, she could out ride, outrun, outshoot and out fish any boy her age in the area. There were plenty of boys who were interested in her, like Gilroy Gaines, the Texas drover, Stockton Winston, who worked for her father or Arturo Romanoff, the gypsy boy who read novels and dreamed dreams as big as hers. Yet, Katie can't be bothered with men who might tie her down. She has big dreams of being an actress and traveling the West. She wants to travel and see things she's never seen before. And it all would start by going West. When her Uncle Jay goes to California, the plan is for his family to follow, using the new Overland Mail Stagecoach. When he left, his wife Cecilia and newly married daughter Clare were pregnant. They were to follow while the babies were still nursing, with Tyrell, Clare's husband, to escort them. However, Clare is injured in a carriage wreck and Aunt Cecilia becomes ill with malaria. Uncle Jay himself becomes ill and his family is summoned to his bedside in San Francisco. Is this Katie's chance to go West, to help her aunt and cousin? Or must she say good-bye to them, as well as her chance to Head West?