The old West was an incubator for gold mines that became “lost.” Most still are. An 1879 story in a San Francisco newspaper triggered a steady trickle of prospectors and speculators searching the Owens River headwaters in the High Sierra for a lost mine, with no success. Now a wizened, 60-year-old prospector, Frank; a prominent Reno woman of 34, Ursula; and two brothers — Mark, a celebrity, 36-year-old geology professor at the University of Nevada, Reno; and Quid, age 27 and recently released from prison — become entangled in a high-tech effort to locate the elusive mine.
What begins as a friendly venture becomes an adventure as brotherly love turns ugly, an earthquake upsets plans, bandits intervene, and the owner of a major Reno corporation suddenly dies. The only heir of the owner is thrust into the presidency. She discovers the enterprise is headed for bankruptcy, her family shareholders are mutinous, and her live-in partner of five years is in danger — from gold fever.