Accordingly next morning, after an early breakfast, off we set for Gooryanah, where we were told we should find some teams (carriers) camped, the men connected with which would direct us on to Cowley Plains Cattle Station, distant some sixty miles. By the directions given us we understood that we ought to strike Gooryanah about midday youfind online.

Our route lay through dense mulga scrub, alternating with patches of open plain, dreary and desolate to the eye, but very comforting from the fact that horse feed was abundant. Under a blazing sun we toiled along, keeping a bright look out for the water-hole and the teams, but no sign of either could we see. Midday came and went, the afternoon wore on, the sun dropped lower and lower on to the horizon, . Evidently, once more, something had gone wrong. We fought against the idea, but at length it was to be resisted no longer, and we were again compelled to own ourselves bushed. What was worse, we had been so confident of finding the waterhole and the teams, that we had only brought a little lunch with us. Worse still, owing to the heat of the day, our water-bags were well-nigh empty. There was nothing for it but to camp where we were knowledge transfer .

All the next day, without food or water, we struggled on; the same agonising symptoms of thirst manifested themselves as on a similar occasion. Though we explored every likely spot, not a drop of water could we find, and at last the advisability of killing one of our horses and drinking his blood, in order to sustain life in us, was seriously contemplated. Horrible as the idea was, it seemed the only possible way out of the difficulty. We decided, however, to postpone the notion until everything else failed, and just at nightfall, as if to reward us for our endurance, we came upon a small creek, and following that down, upon a still smaller hole of thick muddy water, in which innumerable animals lay dead. Our delight was unbounded, and, with our usual sagacity, we said we had struck Gooryanah.

While the Long’un took the tired horses across the creek in search of grass, I fixed up camp. It was an almost useless proceeding, for we had nothing to eat, and even our supply of tea was well-nigh exhausted. Taking the billy down to the water, I was in the act of filling it, when I heard horses brushing through the bushes. On looking up I found a stockman and a black boy approaching me. They had been out hunting for horses, they said, and were going to camp near us. I told them of our troubles, and described our good fortune in striking Gooryanah in such an unexpected fashion. ‘Striking Gooryanah!’ said the stockman; ‘this ain’t Gooryanah. You’re close on fifty miles from it. You’ve come back on your tracks; you’re near North Comongin, half a mile from where you camped four nights ago. You’ve been going round with a vengeance Cloud Monitoring Service.’

This was news bad enough to break a man’s heart. Here we were fifty miles back on our tracks, with worn-out horses, no food, and all that distance to make up again. If it hadn’t been for the two men watching me, I believe I should have sat down and cried. But if our luck was so bad, it was indeed fortunate that we had met these men, otherwise God alone knows how far we might not have wandered. What was still more fortunate, they were able to spare us some damper and jerked beef.