[1] Due to his mixed Aboriginal heritage, Joe Flick was judged by colonial Australian society to be a half-caste or yellow boy, derogatory terms designed to belittle his worth as a human based upon his darker skin.
[2] Despite the social stigma, Flick was accepted as a legitimate son by his father and spent at least part of his childhood on Mungyer Station where he was taught how to be a stockman.
Harry soon assaulted and abducted an Aboriginal "half-caste" girl named Lizzie from the Mangalore homestead belonging to William Jenkins.
[4][5][6] In the early 1880s, after being released from prison, Harry Flick took his son Joe further north where they found employment on the Lawn Hill Station property of pioneer pastoralist Frank Hann.
By this stage, Joe Flick had become a smart and athletic young man who was an expert horseman, an excellent marksman and was well regarded in the region as a good worker.
[2][7] Flick stole some horses and made his escape hundreds of kilometres to the west into the Northern Territory which was then a frontier part of South Australia.
However, officers of the local mounted Native Police soon heard of Flick hiding out and in March 1889, a patrol led by Constable Robert Stott took him into custody at Hodgson Downs.
[8] Flick was held in remand at Fannie Bay Gaol in Palmerston until July 1889 when he was extradited to Queensland to face trial for the attempted murder of James Cashman.
[9] With the aid of an accomplice who somehow was able to provide him with a small saw-blade, Flick was able to cut through the timber floor of his cell at the Normanton jail and escape.
[11] The Native Police officer at Turn Off Lagoon, Senior Constable Alfred Wavell, was able to procure some fresh horses and tracked Flick to Frank Hann's Lawn Hill station on 27 October 1889.
His story has been made into two notable semi-fictional novels; Man Tracks by Ion Idriess and Outlaw by Greg Barron.