As By the Great Horn Spoon! opens, a “sailing ship with two great sidewheels,” the Lady Wilma, leaves Boston on a months-long trip that will take it around the tip of South America and then northward to San Francisco (1). It is January 1849, the height of the California Gold Rush, and many of the ship’s 183 passengers are on their way to the goldfields near San Francisco in the hopes of striking it rich. In the cargo hold, along with ample stores of bricks, lumber, grape cuttings, cannons, and rifles are 18 barrels of potatoes, two of which hide stowaways. On the second day at sea, these stowaways come out of hiding: a 12-year-old schoolboy and an elegant man with a black umbrella, white gloves, a broadcloth coat, and a bowler hat. The schoolboy is Jack Flagg—known as “Master Jack” to the elegant man, who is his family butler, an Englishman named Praiseworthy.

In the drafty hold of the Lady Wilma, Jack tries not to think of his Aunt Arabella’s house, where he grew up. He is cold, hungry, and miserable, but also wildly excited, as he and Praiseworthy are finally on their way to the goldfields.