A decade after Jane Withersteen, Lassiter, and their adopted daughter, Fay Larkin, escape through Deception Pass, the family faces new trials when Fay is abducted for marriage by a local Mormon group. As Fay struggles against a forced marriage, she encounters John Shefford, a cowboy searching for a new life, and who may be the only one who can free her. The sequel to Zane Grey's bestselling Riders of the Purple Sage, The Rainbow Trail was also published under the title The Desert Crucible.