A young English doctor comes to live in a small Victorian country town. He makes friends with the local mounted trooper, son of a 'good old English family' and goes to live in an old watch house on a local squatter's property. The squatter's younger daughter Nellie, a little mentally impaired, has an informal 'house' of her own there - and the doctor discovers she meets there a violent and cruel bushranger who uses as a tool to get money from her father. Theft and murder follows. (PB)