When Captain Mabbitt's wagon train pulled out of Franklin, Missouri, in 1822, bets were laid that it would never return.  For at that time the thousand-mile journey to Sante Fe had never been dared on wheels.

More than once thirteen-year-old Esty Lang regretted his sudden decision to sign on as cook's helper for the expedition.  With each mile loomed obstacles more menacing than the last:  dreaded tribes of Indians, flooded rivers to cross, blistering deserts and jagged mountains where wagon travel seemed impossible.  But Esty's worst trouble came when three conspirators in the wagon train kidnaped him and struck off on their own across the unmapped desert—a region known as the "Journey of Death."  His daring escape and perilous struggle through a blinding sandstorm to find Mabbitt's outfit is an exciting prelude to the final lap of their treacherous journey.  

The author, a noted historian, has created here a story rich with lively characters and filled with a real sense of the hazards faced by those first fearless pioneers who opened up the West to wagon travel.

From the dust jacket