Johnnie is a nine-year old city orphan (his mother is dead, his father in prison). He has recently been placed with Stuart and Kay Heath, a childless couple who live in the Australian outback on a cattle station which Stuart manages for its wealthy owner. Hoping for a "real" boy, they are bitterly disappointed. Johnnie is not quite the foster child they had in mind: he is "cheeky and lazy, cowardly and stubborn." So when he claims to have witnessed a murder they remind him of the boy who cried wolf. But then Johnnie and Kay are invited on a camping trip. A special treat to give Johnnie another chance to adjust to life in the outback? Or a cunning trap by a ruthless killer?.