In the year 1849, an American migration took place, bringing a hundred thousand people from the lands of Eastern America to the far West of California. Some of these gold pilgrims came from other countries as far away as England and Australia, some by land, some by sea. They were all following a vision, a dream of riches that you could just pull from the earth, the shiny metal, malleable and bright, gold. Just like the boom that took place when the fur trade of the Rocky Mountains exploded with the harvesting of thousands and thousands of beavers, the gold rush to California brought with it large numbers of people and their problems. The story outlined in this book is that of one of these fur trappers, a man who had done well by himself as a fur trapper and later became a scout an important part of what would become known as the Mexican War. The treaty with Mexico was signed in 1848 and California became another territory of the United Colonies of America. It is often said that timing is everything, and for Jeremiah Warner, the Mountain Man, the warlock, he had been among the first Americans to enter California and knew about the gold discoveries long before they became common knowledge in the East. He had seen a section of the American River quite a distance from Sacramento that he had said to himself, if he ever came back to California, that's where he would want to settle. He loved the river and he knew that in several other places around that area, rivers like this one had produced gold findings. In this volume he makes his way with his wife Cheyenne woman, Flying Dove back to Sacramento and back to the gold rush that was just beginning.
About the Author: Robert M. Johnson has had a lifelong fascination with the American West of the 19th century. His travels to the Rocky Mountains and further West to California have made this into a creative inspiration. His character, Jeremiah Warner, the Mountain Man, embodies the intense drive of the American frontier. The rich culture and literature of the American West has led the author to read and study hundreds of books and documents from this period. Every one of the previous fourteen volumes in this Mountain Man Series have been the result of extensive reading and study. This new volume takes the Mountain Man on a totally new adventure into the gold fields of California. His fictional life mirrors the real-life exploits of men like Joe Walker, Kit Carson, Jim Bridger, Jedediah Smith and countless others. The forces that drove them west were a confusing mix of physical endurance, greed, rage, and impulsivity. Circumstances made them horse traders, trappers, hunters, gold miners, soldiers and lawmen. Their lives followed an ever-expanding growth of the new rich country that was becoming America.