Cirrus@Austlit

This, the nineteenth in a series on pioneers and explorers, tells of the explorations and life of Major Thomas Livingston Mitchell, focusing on a day in 1836 when Mitchell and his fellow explorers crept up to a hut on the shores of Portland Bay. It also tells of the death of the botanist Richard Cunningham at the hands of Aboriginal men.

Corporal Kovi of the native police is disheartened because the girl he loves, Kila, will not accept him unless he presents her with a Orokaiva armshell. He has searched unsucessfully for a long time. One day his white sergeant gives him the task of bringing to justice some murderers from a distant village. Kovi discovers that one of the murdered men was his father and Kovi is very upset. He captures the murderers but on the way back the one who murdered his father slips from the boat. At first Kovi decides to allow the man to drown but changes his mind and saves him. Back home he discovers that he has inadvertly picked up a shellband which he proudly offers to his delighted Kila.