Starting their journey from their home in Missouri, Florrie Ryder and her family are headed towards the promise of a new life in Santa Fe. As they cross the Great Plains of the midwestern prairie, fording rivers and climbing mountains, the Ryders encounter endless hardship as they undertake this great adventure.

		Camp No. 12 Mother and I were bent over the cooking fire... when Jem called out to us. We turned our eyes to heaven and saw a magnificent rainbow. The sky was nearly on fire with the colors. Jem asked Mother, "Is it true there's a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? I'd like to think I could climb that hill and discover a pot of riches there." "Alas, the end of the rainbow is always much farther away than it seems," Mother told him. I daresay my own mother is beginning to sound like a fortune-teller. "I think the end of the rainbow must be all the way in California," said Jem, "and I aim to find it someday." Mother laughed. Her laugh... was as welcome as a change of clothes on the prairie. The trail, like a rainbow, leads us west. And west. And westward still.