Will the Anderson brothers discover Jim Richmond's buried treasure and emerge from the gold rush rich as princes? Will the innocent Thomas be pulled along as his older brother takes ever bigger and increasingly more questionable risks? Will Paul realize his dream or go mad as it consumes him? Will the constable arrive in time to save Claire, Jim's fiancée, from becoming a gold rush casualty at Paul's hand? Among the conflicting personal dreams here, there is also an ever deepening conflict between different visions of what makes a human being rich, truly rich, and about “…what it takes” to become rich. It is this conflict that might kill Thomas, or let him emerge from Devil's Canyon a rich man.
