There were three of us - Norman, Charlie, and I. Norman and Charlie had a touch of colored blood; their father was the famous pioneer Robert Baird, who had opened up China Camp when he and Christy Palmerston brought the first cattle over land.

Of Norman and Charlie the author says that their life was lived in two worlds, the white and the black. The deep inner life of the natives, the 'secret life' to which but very few white men have ever been admitted, was theirs as freely as was the totally different outlook of the whites... So we are able to understand how, with these two for his daily companions, Mr. Idriess came to gather so much of the extraordinary information he imparts concerning the aboriginals and the mysteries of jungle and forest. There is atmosphere, there is fascination, in this book, from the first page to the last; and in the chapters which deal with the "Old Hatter" of Mount Molloy we are brought into close contact with one of those strange men whose lives have been merged right into the mysterious heart of the Wild...

Daily Mercury, Mackay 1932