'The story has a Central Australian setting and grips one's attention from start to finish. Roy Mitchell, a metallurgist and lecturer in Science at Melbourne University, and his friend Fisher, a medical student, become possessed of information that leads them to believe that Robert Wright has certain knowledge of gold-bearing country out from Oodnadatta.
'Years previously an expedition went north and completely disappeared, and while one man had died fromprivation, at the same time being terribly burned, his daughter and companion were both given up for dead. The dying prospector gasped, "Find Schäfer-Rae-burn-,ing air-." These words were gasped to Bob Wright, who knew something of the aims of the prospectors, and for some years he endeavored to solve the mystery. Mitchell, Fraser and Wright undertake to explore the reefs in Central Australia according to a plan given to Wright by the prospector just before he 'crossed the bar'. After a weary journey the two former men reached the spot considered to be the best base for operations, and which was marked by a tree with an X on it.From that time onwards their adventures were strange and many.'
Source: Porter, John. Books worth reading. Darwin: Northern Territory Times, 1929.