This is the story of Otis Tolman, who set out as a young man from Rockland, Maine in 1854 to find his fortune, first as a sailor and then as a miner during the California Gold Rush. Based on Tolman’s daily diary and other historical documents, the authors, Barron and Carpenter, show how he transforms from a church-going individual to a hard drinking, gun-toting, gambling miner, intent on little else but the pursuit of wealth. His sojourn out west leads him to abandon his family and young wife, and ultimately results in his early death, alone and virtually penniless. It is a fascinating glimpse into how the gritty and brutal world of the Wild West in the 1850s shaped the life of one man.