[1] It was later made into a short-running television series on ABC from September 1963 through March 1964, featuring Kurt Russell as Jaimie, Dan O'Herlihy as his father, "Doc" Sardius McPheeters, and Michael Witney and Charles Bronson as the wagon masters, Buck Coulter and Linc Murdock, respectively.

Young Sam, the protagonist, is often compared to Tom Sawyer, with TIME magazine arguing that "he can also take as much physical punishment as James Bond".

[1] The novel is aimed at an adult audience and contains episodes that would have kept it off any school list at the time—was published in 1958 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction the following year.

In it, the young Jaimie (spelled with two "i"s) accompanies a wagon train headed from St. Louis, Missouri, to California after the 1849 Gold Rush.

The novel alternates between Jaimie describing his journey by wagon train and commentary by his father, a Scottish doctor with an effervescent personality whose judgment is often clouded by his weakness for gambling and strong drink.