Age range 9 to 12
An exciting adventure, Dead Man’s Gold draws on the legends of the Australian outback, featuring treasure hunting, droving, gold prospecting and ghosts. Billy Stone rides out one morning, headed for the cattle muster at Black Hills Station, but a stop at a waterhole in No-Man’s Gorge leads to some startling discoveries. A skeleton, a silver pistol and a treasure map take Billy on a wild ride. Billy’s bush skills and a mysterious gold prospector, known only as ‘the old timer’, help him to track down the treasure. Billy discovers gold, only to lose it to the wiley One Arm Jack, who tells him that the old timer is more than he appears. Although young and easily betrayed, Billy is not to be outdone.
Dead Man’s Gold is a fine adventure story, full of twists and turns, as the Aboriginal drover whose respect for the dead is richly rewarded when it helps him uncover a secret that has been buried for years.
