America's first frontier had drawn them west, but would their dreams betray them?

A tragic loss forces Josh Spencer to leave his home in Virginia and seek the frontier as an escape from his pain and bitterness of heart. Setting out in late fall with no knowledge of wilderness survival, he encounters a heavy snowstorm. And then a Cherokee chief finds him . . .

Freedom and the hope of a homestead "over the misty mountains" entice Patrick and Elizabeth MacNeal and their two children to leave their secure life in Boston. Sailing to Virginia, they join a wagon train of pioneers headed west and find their journey sabotaged by broken wheels, violent storms, and flooding creeks. Then comes an attack by renegade Indians . . .

The frontier has brought them together--but can it sustain their hope of a new life?