Opal Sloan is a beautiful but dirt-poor girl from an abusive background who crosses over to the dark side. She runs away from home only to be taken in by a blackguard who runs a brothel. Escaping that unhealthy environment, she resorts to being a harem girl in a dime show circus until a do-gooding doctor trains her to be a nurse during the Civil War. When she feels she is betrayed by the doctor, she becomes a mistress to a rich man wounded in the war, only to leave him for a riverboat gambler. When he is shot in a card game, she finally falls in with a band of outlaws who rob banks, trains...

Lilly McPhee is a young woman from the east who is seduced by the son of the wealthy family in whose mansion she toils as a servant, and finding herself in trouble, she heads west to start a new life. She winds up working in a bawdyhouse as a maid until she marries a cattle rancher, Tom Holden. When he is killed by Indians, she travels from Colorado to the Wyoming Territory, where she is captured by Indians and held captive. A medicine man, Lone Eagle, takes pity on her and becomes her friend and when the relationship becomes more serious, he allows her to return to civilization. Lilly has...

Jesse is a plucky girl growing up on a farm in Missouri whose parents are killed by outlaws. Forced to fend for herself, she becomes involved with a snake oil salesman, Gabriel Dubois but when he is shot as a pickpocket, she gives their baby up for adoption and sets out in the gold rush for California. She finds gold but is double-crossed by her partner. An adventuresome Jesse tries her hand at jobs normally reserved for men: cowboy, army scout, muleskinner and she even rides for the Pony Express. She is brave enough to nurse miners who have smallpox and comes to the aid of a friend in a...

Billie Goodfellow is Puck in pantaloons. To the untutored eye, she may look like a poor, wayfaring stranger but she is a brave-hearted girl in search of adventure. She becomes a pirate on the high seas and a Patriot during the American Revolution. Billie blazes new trails through the wilderness with the woodsman Turkey Tom and the trapper Jacques-Pierre. Even so, she is still kindhearted enough to help two children escape from a cruel orphanage and she gives a childless couple a baby of her own. Billie falls in with a highwayman called The Duke and has many other misadventures including one...

Desperate, Fiona Flaherty and her brother Sean must leave their beloved Ireland during the potato famine and start a new life in America. Finding the city streets are not paved with gold, they head for the legendary California Trail to seek their fortune. They meet Trevor Tremaine, a young man on the run who also hopes to strike it rich in the Golden State. Raised as a southern gentleman, he helps found one of the first banks in San Francisco, and when Fiona finds success as a singer, she and Sean are able to buy Freedom Ranch. Headstrong Fiona collects wealthy husbands while handsome Trevor...