Gold fever swept the country, and by 1849 people were flooding into California any way they could get there. A young man named Stan decided to travel with a wagon train the 3,000 miles overland, recording his journey in a notebook. At first, the travelers segregated themselves into smaller groups that ridiculed and bickered with one another, but after months on the trail, they came to realize that they were all Forty-Niners working toward the shared goal of making it to the gold fields alive—and together.