Prince Frederick Ludwig, prospective heir to the Habsburg throne, is ambushed and almost assassinated while on a special mission given him by his uncle Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Frederick and cavalry korporal Michael Petras are the sole survivors of the ambush. With Petras as his aide, Frederick begins an odyssey that includes a Benedictine Abbey on the Danube River, a perilous transatlantic crossing to New York and a meeting with wealthy gold and silvers mine owners in Silverton, Colorado. Unaware that they are still being pursued by a cabal that wants to kill the prince and stop the crucial mission, the two Habsburg Cowboys, as they are called by the ranch hands of multi-millionaire miner and rancher Tom Walsh, decide to remain in Colorado after their mission is completed. Petras sends for Rosalia Luscak, a woman he met while on leave in Austria, to become his bride, while Frederick mulls his own future. However, before Petras's bride-to-be arrives in Silverton, both men are gravely wounded by a hired gunman and at least one of them may not survive his wounds. The assassination of Frederick's uncle, Archduke Ferdinand, triggers World War I and buries the purpose and nature of the prince's mission; until its secret is finally unlocked over one hundred years later by Yale University Professor Kurt Linder and his research assistant Melissa Hoffman. Their shocking discovery, though, might require rewriting the history of the final years of the Habsburg Monarchy.