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Updated: June 27, 2025
Wherever it can, it helps the bush-folk, and they, in turn, doing what they can to help it in self-imposed task, are ever ready to "find room somewhere" in pack-bags or swags for mail-matter in need of transport assistance the general opinion being that "a man that refuses to carry a man's mail to him 'ud be mean enough to steal bread out of a bird-cage."
The horses were hobbled and grazing along the green border of the creek. The buggy propped up, was covered with a tarpaulin. The pack-bags had disgorged their contents. A miscellaneous heap of camp properties lay on the ground. And now, Cudgee's axe was at work again, stripping a section of bark from a gum tree, for what purpose Lady Bridget did not divine.
A few mosquitoes for variety paid us persistent attentions during the early part of the night; but their stings and bites were delightful pleasures compared to the agonies inflicted on us by the myriads of small black ants. Another hot wind and sand-dust day; still sewing and repairing pack-bags to get them into something like order and usefulness. At one p.m. Mr.
Beside it stood the simple camp of the stockman a litter of pack-bags, mosquito-nets, and swags; here and there were scattered the even more simple camps of the black boys; and in the background, the cumbrous camp of the Chinese drovers reared itself up in strong contrast to the camps of the bushfolk two fully equipped tents for the drovers themselves and a simpler one for their black boys.
Fresh horses were mustered, a mob of bullocks rounded up for a killer, swags and pack-bags packed; and just as all was in readiness for the start, the Quiet Stockman came in, bringing a small mob of colts with him. "I'm leaving," he announced in the Quarters; then, feeling some explanation was necessary, added, "I WAS thinking of it before this happened."
What ho! boys," he shouted in welcome, and the next moment we were in the midst of his clattering team of pack-horses. For five minutes everything was in confusion; horse bells and hobbles jingling and clanging, harness rattling, as horses shook themselves free, and pack-bags, swags, and saddles came to the ground with loud, creaking flops.
N., two pack-bags, containing 135 pounds flour, six leather water-bottles, two tomahawks, one pick, one water canteen, one broken telescope, three emu eggs, some girths and straps, one shoeing hammer, one pound of candles, and left a lantern hanging on a tree.
Just travelin'. Maybe I'll make it over to Rattlesnake Buttes" he raised an arm toward the northeast "and maybe down Caldron Cañon way." He pointed southeast toward the mountains. "I dunno just driftin' along, me an' the little fellas. Sometimes we drift here, and sometimes we drift there. Don't matter much, s'long's there's grub an' a little rolled barley in the pack-bags.
10th. Finished repairs and got everything ready for a good start to-morrow morning, when we will follow my brother's and Pierre's tracks. Cloudy day, but barometer does not fall. Marked a tree F 59, being our 59th bivouac from Geraldton. Hung up on the same tree four pack-bags and one pack-saddle frame. Barometer 28.56; thermometer 74 degrees at 5 p.m.
Breakfast was eaten quickly, and then the pack-bags were weighted evenly and fastened up, horses caught and saddled, a final look given round the camp to see that nothing was left behind, and the three white men set out in a certain direction with no track and with no guidance of any kind except that of the sun, followed at once by the plant of horses driven by the blacks.
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