My heart thumped in my chest. Fear coursed through me...it was not a rope, but a snake. A rattlesnake. For twelve year-old pioneer Claire McKay, leaving her grandparents and the world she knows to settle with her family near the Niobrara River in northern Nebraska seemed like a grand adventure. Soon, however, the reality of hard work, dust, isolation, and miles of endless prairie turns her new life into a struggle for survival. But with the love of her family, and the friendship of a shy neighbor boy, Claire finds the strength to cope with the trials of creating a new life on the Nebraska frontier.