A Tale of Gold

GOLD! GOLD! GOLD! scream the headlines in July 1987, announcing the discovery of gold in the Yukon. Fourteen-year-old James Erickson, alone in the world after his father's death, is mesmerized when he sees the first ship of prospectors enter the San Francisco harbor. Caught up in the gold fever, he books passage on a steamer up to Alaska.

In Alaska, James meets Tip, a skinny boy who turns out to be a girl—and the only person James trusts to be his partner. Together they embark on a treacher...