"Gold! Gold! They've found gold in the Black Hills!" The words, ringing through St. Louis, touched young Ross Gordon with their tingling excitement. He just had to go to Dakota!

So seventeen-year-old Ross takes part in a gold rush, and knows the cracking wagon trains, the hostile Indians, the mud, the cold, the gruelling trek through the Badlands, the rewarding thrill of those first few shining flakes in the gold pan, at French Creek.

He has plenty of excitement. Meeting with Coco Butterworth and the other cowhands of The Double Be Ranch; racing his horse, Dixie; making friends with Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, and General Crooks; helping to  build a colony in the wilderness; serving as a scout for the United States Cavalry are only a few of his adventures.

Dakota gold rush days of 1874 are Indian days, too. And here the Indians appear—real people in a desperate plight—as the touching history of their betrayal is told, a contrast to the triumph and adventure of the gold rush.

From the dust jacket