In 1931, with the Aborigine Act in Australia, the Chief Protector of Aborigines in the State of Western Australia A.O. Neville had the power to relocate half-caste children from their families to educational centers to give the culture of the white man. When the fourteen year-old aboriginal girl Molly Craig is taken from her mother in Jigalong with her eight year-old sister Daisy Kadibill and their ten year-old cousin Gracie Fields to the distant Moore River Native Center, they run away trying to return to the tribe in the desert. They are chased by the skilled tracker Moodoo and the police under the command of Neville, and have to survive to their long journey back home.