Daughter of a Magnate

The railroad was the spine of a nation, and Frank H. Spearman wrote its epic. DAUGHTER OF A MAGNATE follows Gertrude Brock, the sheltered daughter of a railroad magnate, as she journeys west to see the transcontinental line her father has built. She enters a world of steel and steam, of rough men who live and die by the rails. Ab Glover, a supervisor hardened by years of laying track through impossible terrain, falls desperately in love with her. But between a magnate's daughter and a working man stands the entire weight of the American West. Spearman's novel pulses with the romance of early railroading. He captures the raw courage of workers who tame mountains and bridge canyons, the terror of blizzards that trap trains in frozen passes, the constant threat of accidents that can kill in an instant. This is a love story written against the most unforgiving landscape in America, where devotion to the railroad becomes its own kind of passion.