This is a story about Ann McGrayson. She is a beautiful young woman of 21 assisting her widowed father in his growing oil consulting business in 1862. Tragedy strikes when her father is shot down in the street in the oil boomtown of Burning Springs, Virginia near the Ohio River. Ann swears on her father's grave that she will avenge his killer and drill the oil well that had been their dream together. Her brother, a corporal in the Confederate cavalry, escapes from a Yankee prisoner of war camp in Ohio and brings home Steve, a handsome prison camp buddy who has experience drilling oil wells. Ann hires him and together they meet and overcome strenuous difficulties in pursuing Ann's goals to conclusion. Historical accuracy is maintained for the beginning of the commercial oil industry in the United States. The Burning Springs oil field developed simultaneously with the better known one in Titusville, Pennsylvania. Burning Springs oil money played a vital role in western Virginia becoming the 35th state, West Virginia, in 1863.