Well...except that Katherine's parents aren't farmers. Having spent everything on their transportation from England and setting up their homestead, they're struggling. Now Katherine has to sell her horse because keeping her is just too expensive.

For Emma, the promise of gold is nothing but bad luck. Her father left her and her mother back in England to join the gold rush. Now Emma's beloved mam has died, and Emma's been forced to come after him. Even worse, he thinks he's got the solution to cheer her up. He buys her a horse!

Katherine can hardly bear to give up her beloved Nugget to a girl who's clearly ungrateful for her good fortune and won't learn to ride. Emma, ashamed of a disability that means she can't ride sidesaddle, is desperate to avoid taking lessons from a stuck-up miss who obviously just wants her horse back. Can Nugget help them solve their problems together?

Set against the majestic landscape of the turn-of-the-century West, this is a story of ingenuity, courage, friendship--and the love of a horse.