It's 1903 and Abigail Fitz and her children are traveling cross country by train to join her husband in San Francisco. Abigail is hoping for a quiet trip with extra time for the boys to study. But before they leave Oklahoma, her sons discover an abandoned horse and wagon whose missing driver had tickets for the very same train they will take passage on. As they travel through the grassy plains of Nebraska and steep mountains and tall canyons of Wyoming and Nevada, Abigail's sons search the train for someone who may have known and planned to travel with the missing driver. Meanwhile, Abigail herself is kept busy helping a sickly woman whose sister elopes mid-trip leaving her with an inadequate and possibly thieving nurse. When it becomes obvious the train has attracted the attention of a notorious gang, the train's security hurries to find all members planted on board. Soon Abigail and her sons discover more about who the missing driver might be, and it's hard to know what to believe. Thankfully, the corn has ears.