On a cattle station at the edge of the Australian desert, three hundred miles from the nearest town, each day brings its own dram, of violence, achievement or surprise. When Bob arrives at the Banner place - thousands of square miles of Aboriginal and kangaroo country - the drought has dragged on for seven years. But each man and woman is fighting as hard as ever for their own way of life - often literally. Within a few days Bob rescues Minnie from a brawl among other Aboriginals and learns that it is not only the women, black and white, who are treated harshly - stock hands, their horses, anything that moves or serves the raising of the cattle is used hard. Yet tenderness still survives, whether in Minnie's devotion to Bob or the desperation with which he himself fights to save the life of the rugged old man who taught him everything he knows about the life of the Outback. Author's first novel.