Thirteen-year-old Betsy Zane is bored with her privileged life in Philadelphia, bored with her great-aunt's stories about the old days, and bored with trying to be a lady. She longs to rejoin her brothers at the family homestead along the Ohio River, where she can finally be free to enjoy the unspoiled countryside that she has missed ever since she was forced to leave it as a child.

When her great-aunt dies, Betsy has the opportunity to return to her frontier home. She frees the house slaves, bundles up the few belongings she can carry, and sets off to find safe passage to the homestead she has dreamed about for so long. At Zane Station she finds much excitement?and some tough choices. Her new life forces her to think more deeply about slavery, loyalty, and family. Betsy begins a romance with a dashing young soldier, and takes part in the greatest adventure of her life, a heroic run for gunpowder?a historical event?that saves Fort Henry in what proved to be the final battle of the Revolutionary War.

Based on the true story of Betsy Zane, this exciting account of a real-life heroine's adventures on the western frontier is rich with vivid and carefully researched historical detail. Author's note, bibliography.