Orville Woodruff was just twenty-five and for the past two years he had been cooped up in an office in San Francisco taking verbal abuse from Henry Ellis, who was never satisfied. Orville dreamed of open spaces and being free of Henry Ellis & Co., wholesale jewelers. Then a letter arrived from his father saying he had struck gold. Orville promptly quit his job with plans to join his father. Despite the shock of discovering the letter had been postmarked in Encinitas, Arizona, fifteen years ago, Orville took the morning train hoping to find some trace of his father.