Ten years after he first took shelter with the Queensland Aborigines, Jack Drew, an escaped convict, has decided the time has come to return to civilization. But while he is unwittingly accepted as a free man, he finds himself at odds with those around him, condemning their treatment of convicts and Aborigines, and intimidated by the basics of civilized society. He finds employment on a back-country farm called Emerald Downs, and when the owner, Major Ferrington, is ordered to take squads of troops into the wilds beyond Brisbane and roust the Aborigines who have been terrorizing the area, Jack is horrified to find he must go with him as a scout. The farm is left in the hands of Adrian Pinnock - the brother of Major Ferrington's fiancee, Jessie - but when Jessie herself insists on accompanying him, dealings on the once well-ordered estate take a very different course. It soon becomes clear that the shattering events of these frontier times will give new meaning to all their lives.