Lily Paxton is a child of the 1880s Oklahoma territories, born to a poor gypsy mother and a wealthy mine-owning father. She rides the prairies and the grasslands making friends with the foreman's son at her father's mine and a Native American boy she meets in the ancient Cross Timbers forest. But, when she reaches sixteen she is sent east to her father's wealthy family and a finishing school where she will prepare for courtship with wealthy young men or perhaps even a European noble. But, when a chance happening calls her back to Oklahoma she finds she must choose between a return to the east and a life of wealth and privilege or the hard life in a territory not yet a state. The choice she makes will not only determine her own future but will help to determine the fate of a very young nation.