To the place therefore where Mr. Cunningham’s own steps had last been seen I hastened on the morning of the 29th April with the same men, Muirhead and Whiting, who had so ably and humanely traced all the tracks of the horse, through a distance of 70 miles.

The spot seemed well chosen as a halting-place, being at a few trees which advanced beyond the rest of the wood into a rather extensive plain:  a horse tied there could have been seen from almost any part around, and it is not improbable that Mr. Cunningham left the animal there fastened, and that it had afterwards got loose, and had finally perished for want of water.

We soon found the print of Mr. Cunningham’s footsteps in two places:  in one, coming towards the trees where the horse had been tied, from a thick scrub east of them; in the other, leading from these trees in a direction straight northward.  Pursuing the latter steps we found them continuous in that direction and, indeed, remarkably long and firm, the direction being preserved even through thick brushes.

This course was direct for the Bogan; and it was evident that, urged by intense thirst, he had at length set off with desperate speed for the river, having parted from his horse, where the party had supposed.  That he had killed and eaten the dog in the scrub, whence his footsteps had been seen to emerge was probable, as no trace of the animal was visible beyond it; and as it was difficult otherwise to account for his own vigorous step, after an abstinence of three days and three nights.  I then regretted that I had not at the time examined the scrub but, when we were at his last camp (the trees on the plain) we were most interested in Mr. Cunningham’s further course.

This we traced more than two miles, during which he had never stopped, even to look behind towards the spot where, had he left his horse, he might still have seen him.  Having at length lost the track on some very hard ground we exhausted the day in a vain search for it.

MR. LARMER MEETS A TRIBE.

On returning to the camp I found that Mr. Larmer, whom I had sent with two armed men down the Bogan, had nearly been surrounded, at only three miles from our camp, by a tribe of natives carrying spears.  Amongst these were two who had been with us on the previous day, and who called to the others to keep back.  They told Mr. Larmer that they had seen Mr. Cunningham’s track in several parts of the bed of the Bogan; that he had not been killed but had gone to the westward (pointing down the Bogan) with the Myall (i.e. wild) Blackfellows.  Thus we had reason to hope that our friend had at least escaped the fate of his unfortunate horse by reaching the Bogan.  This was what we wished; but no one could have supposed that he would have followed the river downwards, into the jaws of the wild natives, rather than upwards.  His movements show that he believed he had deviated to the eastward of our route rather than to the westward; and this mistake accounts for his having gone down the Bogan.