Five-year-old Cate's world turned upside down the night her home burned, her mother died, and she and her father left all she had known. After traveling to a stranger's home in Grand Falls, Illinois, her father left her promising to return. An unfulfilled promise that the little girl buried but could not forget.

Now, in 1885, after graduating from Oberlin College, Cate is eager to begin her teaching career. But first she returns to Grand Falls, Illinois to help her foster mother move to Chicago. While cleaning the house, papers are discovered that imply her name may be false and her father a thief.

Shocked, puzzled, and angry, Cate determines to discover the truth. To do so she must travel to Michigan's booming copper towns and what she discovers there will test her self-reliance, courage, and concept of justice.