Sixteen year old Fredi Steinmetz longed for adventure and riches. What better way to find both than to follow the Gold Rush from Texas to California, But he didn't reckon on bandits, and robbers, gold in the riverbanks, murder in the streets of San Francisco and the saloons of Moke Hill, a rich cache of under a half-dead pine tree on the North Fork, of Mormons and gold-miners, fugitive Fenians, and the Lotta Crabtree, the Faery Star dancing under a glittering golden rain thrown on stage The wild west was never wilder.