The Red Chief

Full-page black and white plates, text and maps. Discolouration marking to cloth top rear. Minor foxing. Dust jacket is chipped, top right tape mark and small section of surface removed. Piece missing bottom of spine and top left front of jacket. Good tight copy. Dust jacket colour still vivid with little fade.

Fitted with archive quality dust jacket protector.

This is the story of the mighty warrior who once ruled the Gunnedah district, as it was told by "King" Bungaree, the last of his tribe, two centuries later. The bones of the once- feared Red Chief and the carved tree that marked his resting-place have been taken to a museum, the tribe he made powerful has melted away, leaving its lands to the white man, but in these pages Ion Idriess has called back that vanishing world to vivid and exciting life. It would be hard to find a more satisfying hero of adventure than the young warrior Red Kangaroo, who by his mental and physical prowess succeeds in overthrowing the chief and elders whose selfish greed is destroying the tribe, who as chief himself begins a desperate race with time to strengthen his people before their enemies realise their weakness and attack, and who meets that attack when it comes with undaunted courage and brilliant strategy. The thrilling account of this battle, with such episodes as Red Kangaroo's lone raid into enemy country to steal a wife, will live long in the reader's memory.

This is Australian history at its most fascinating the history before the convicts and explorers, the settlers and politicians. It is a first-rate tale of adventure, but it is something more- a true story handed down from generation to generation of its hero's tribe, and given by the last survivor to the white inheritors, a story rooted deeply in the Australian earth and in the struggles and aspirations of all humanity.