Helen Grieve

In Australia, five children pursue horse thieves through the mountains.

It's the start of WWII in Northern Australia. The Japanese are getting close. People are evacuating and burning everything in a "scorched earth" policy. Rather than kill all their cattle, a disparate group decides to drive them overland half way across the continent, from Wyndham in Western Australia through the Northern Territory outback of Australia to pastures north of Brisbane, Queensland.