Davy put the money in his pocket, went to the Queen’s Head, and, as it was already dark, he hired a man for ten shillings to show him the road through the wet wilderness of Caulfield and round No-good-damper Swamp.  It was half-past eleven when he arrived at Hook’s Hotel, and, as his pony was still too lame to travel, he bought the horse he had hired, and set out with the Sale mailman.  At the Moe he found Angus McMillan, William Montgomery, and their stockmen, afraid to cross the creek on account of the flood, and they had eaten all their provisions.  Before dark a black gin came over in a canoe from the accommodation hut on the other side of the creek, having heard the travellers cooeying.  They told her they wanted something to eat, but it was too dangerous for her to cross the water again that night.  A good fire was kept burning but it was a wretched time.  It rained heavily, a gale of wind was blowing, and trees kept falling down in all directions.  Scott, the hut-keeper, sent the gin over in the canoe next morning with a big damper, tea, sugar, and meat, which made a very welcome breakfast for the hungry travellers.

They stayed there two days and two nights, and as the flood was still rising, they resolved to try to cross the creek at all risks, preferring to face the danger of death by drowning rather than to die slowly of starvation.  Each man took off his clothes, all but his flannel shirt and drawers, strapped them to the pommel of his saddle, threw the stirrup irons over the saddle, and stopped them with a string under the horse’s belly to keep them from getting foul in the trees and scrub.  In some places the horses had to climb over logs under water, sometimes they had to swim, but in the end they all arrived safely at the hut.  They were very cold, and ravenously hungry; and while their clothes were drying before a blazing fire, they drank hot tea and ate up every scrap of food, so that Scott was obliged to accompany them to the next station for rations.  He left the gin behind, having no anxiety about her.  While he was away she could feed sumptuously on grubs, crabs, and opossums.

In March, 1852, when everybody was seized with the gold fever, Davy took it in the natural way.  He again left Port Albert without a pilot and went to Melbourne to resign his office.  But Mr. Latrobe promised to give him a salary of 500 pounds a year and a boat’s crew of five men and a coxswain.  The men were to have twelve-and-six a day and the coxswain fifteen shillings.

By this time the gold fever had penetrated to the remotest parts of Gippsland, and from every squatting station and every lonely hut on the plains and mountains men gathered in troops.  They were leaving plenty of gold behind them at Walhalla and other places.  The first party Davy met had a dray and bullocks.  They were slowly cutting a road through the scrub, and their team was the first that made its way over the mountains from Gippsland to Melbourne.  Their