As farmers, Lemuel Hawke and his fifteen-year-old son, Morgan, are used to hard work and a hard life. But nothing prepared them for the dangers of the trail they follow west, heading for the rich, fur-trapping grounds of the Rocky Mountains. Storms, floods, and deadly cold threaten the Hawkes, but Nature’s fury is not the only peril father and son face. As they follow the trail, others follow them: an unscrupulous fur trader out to claim other men's wealth as his own; a man bent on avenging his murdered brother; a woman scorned. Luckily, Lem and Morgan have allies: a band of trappers and mountain men whose gruff exteriors mask fierce loyalty and hard-won wisdom...and the Indians who see in young Morgan a powerful strength of spirit.