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Updated: June 24, 2025
His father used to own Langdale Station, a big sheep run in the Western District, but a series of bad droughts had forced him to sell the place. The two boys had been great friends at school, and when Drover Stobart wrote to his son: "Come on up to Oodnadatta for a bit of a holiday before settling down, and bring your mate along with you", they both accepted the invitation with enthusiasm.
That, from a teamster's point of view, is the Overland Route from Oodnadatta to the Katherine.
The bridge must have been caught by the very centre of the tornado. The camels did not stop at the creek. They travelled on for a couple of miles to where a railway engine and a few trucks were waiting. These had been sent down from Oodnadatta with a break-down gang of men, and were returning next day.
Vaughan took the letter and read it before replying. "It says 'Tell Oodnadatta trooper'," he remarked. "I reckon we ought to do that first, Sax, don't you?" When breakfast was over, the boys asked the way to the trooper's house, and were told that Sergeant Scott had gone away after some blacks who had been spearing cattle. No one had any idea when he was likely to return.
Cattle. How's the water down the road?" The man consulted a paper nailed on a board. It contained the names of all the water-holes from Alice Springs to Oodnadatta. He began to read, running his finger below the words and pronouncing them slowly: "Yellow dry. Sugar-Loaf dry. Anvil Soak dry. One Tree Well only enough for a plant; makes very slow. Simpson's Hole dry.
But Dan did; and the camp chat that night was worth travelling several hundred miles to hear: tales dug out of the beginning of things; tales of drought, and flood, and privation; cattle-duffing yarns, and long tales of the droving days; two years' reminiscences of getting through with a mob reminiscences that finally brought ourselves and the mob to Oodnadatta.
He was as near death, a hideous death, as any man can possibly be who lives to tell the tale. Wild Cattle The boys woke late on their first morning in the Far North. Sax's thoughts immediately turned to his father's letter. He groped under his pillow and pulled it out and read it again: "In difficulties. Musgrave Ranges. Tell Oodnadatta trooper, but no one else. He'll understand.
The man went on to explain that he had arranged to travel north with a string of camels which was leaving the township the same afternoon. They would go as far as Dingo Creek and wait there for the train which was being sent down from Oodnadatta. "That's the best arrangement I can make," said Peter. "If you'd care to come along, now's your chance. You won't have much to do with camels, anyway.
Tell Oodnadatta trooper, but no one else." Boy quite reliable. Don't worry. Get a job somewhere. The friends read it to themselves, and then Sax read it out loud. "'In difficulties'," said Vaughan. "What does that mean?" "Blest if I know. With the cattle, I expect. I wonder where the Musgrave Ranges are." "But why does he say 'tell the trooper and no one else'?" asked Vaughan again.
Sax was using the towel at the time, and when he heard what Peter said, he stopped rubbing his face and looked at him in surprise. "Back to town!" he exclaimed. "But we don't want to go back to town. We're going on to Oodnadatta." "Going on to Oodnadatta, are you?" asked Peter, with a smile. "And how are you going to get there?" "Why, by train, of course," broke in Vaughan.
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