In 1923, a drover rode his horse into the flooded Murrumbidge River at Gundagai and was drowned. This left his only son Albert, with one hundred and fifty seven cattle, an old wagon, two dogs and precious little else. The young man was seventeen, and then he met a girl and they married. He promised Sarah that droving would be good for them. They set off to take the cattle to the high country via Tunbarumba, as Albert's father had always done. The beauty of this life was new to Sarah; coming from the flat dry plains, she never imagined how steep the mountains were, or how cold it could be when it rained. She never imagined the frosty nights where the stars would fairly blaze on the black satin sky.