The story begins:"Is he dead?"Captain Llewellyn Chiverton-Jones III, of the 4th King's Own Regiment of Foot, stood waiting anxiously beside the prone figure of his fellow officer, Captain Ivan Francis, whom he had just shot...................The conflict between two good friends in England, over the favours of a beautiful woman, continues on the far side of the world in Australia. One becomes a jackaroo, a beginner in the cattle industry ─ the other, his mortal enemy.Llewellyn's boss is a woman, and Ivan marries the girl they fought over. Lew has accepted his friend's victory, but is forced by circumstance to remain as part of a turbulent triangle.The story takes place in Dalby and the Jimbour area of the late nineteenth century.