A new gold strike in California ten years after the American Civil War triggers a bitter feud between farmers and miners using hydraulic mining methods that devastate the wheat farms of the Sacramento Valley. The film ends with Jared and Serena looking out over the valley while Jared speaks eloquently of the possible future. A vivid montage shows all the different trees bearing fruit there in the 1930s, ending with the orange groves. Serena's vision, once dismissed as impossible, has been realized.