In order to save her family home after her parents’ death in an accident, Susan Carlisle hires a sheep drover and his team to drive her father’s sheep herd overland from Iowa to California in 1851. Fourteen-year-old Susan and her guardian Mrs. Dessery have a deadline to pay off Dr. Carlisle’s debt to Mr. G. B. Minzter to keep Minzter from taking over Susan’s home and land. Minzter is determined to sabotage the sheep drive from Kanesville to Sacramento City,  but Bert Pettit, skilled mountain man and sheep drover, is not about to let Minzter cut into his profits. Along the trail, Susan develops a crush on Texas cowboy, Clay Carmer who is working off a gambling debt he owes Pettit by driving the sheep to Sacramento City.  Follow Susan and the drovers as they drive two thousand sheep overland to the gold fields of California.