Nancy Drew found out that she has won a rather unusual prize from a contest, a piece of land in Canada. She takes a trip to see what her new property is like. It is her first trip outside the United States.

While she is traveling by train to Canada, she meets an authoress called Ann Chapelle who is also traveling to Canada. Suddenly, the train crashes, and everything is thrown into confusion. Nancy and her two friends, Bess Marvin and George Fayne, are all right, but the authoress that Nancy talked to is in the nearby hospital, gravely injured. When they find where she is, Miss Chapelle tells Nancy the reason why she was coming to Canada, and asks her a favor: to give a message to Miss Chapelle's grandfather, and to a lost love who she hasn't seen since she ran away from home some years ago.

Along with this request, Nancy also has another problem. Two men have heard that there might be gold on Nancy's land, and are determined to get there first!