An adventure story and a history of four generations moving west from Illinois during the Civil War to what was called the Western Desert of Minnesota and the Dakotas but which was in fact the richest farm land ever discovered. The story follows the generations through all the heartbreaks and many joys of the transition from a nearly medieval society of primitive agriculture, medicine and pre-machine age life into the full development of hy-bred crops, mechanical harvesters, the telephone, automobile, highways and the airplane as well as the increasingly brutal and horrific automatizing and industrialization of warfare from the U.S. Civil War, the Spainish-American and World War I.