Kansas integrity is about to meet Spanish benevolence in this story of Old California in the years just before the Gold Rush of 1849. Taken in by the de Soto family, and befriended by Munita and her brother Ernesto, 16-year-old Lank and his sister Tess are determined to find a way to repay their kind hosts. Equally captivated by the gracious culture of Spanish colonial life and alarmed by its open-handed and, to Lank and Tess, downright improvident ways, the two set to work with a will. How they succeed in helping to prepare the de Sotos-- and the Ranch of the Golden Flowers-- for the tremendous changes about to occur, is played out with humor and suspense against a colorful background of skillful vaqueros, thrilling bullfights, daring horsemanship, audacious thieves, and lots of plain, old-fashioned work.
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