ACROSS THE McILWRAITH RANGE 541 



BLACKS at a camp beside a scrubby creek. We rode up to the 

 camp, and the blacks got into the scrub. In the boughs of a tree 

 were two bundles which we took to be corpses, from their smell 

 and shape. While we w r ere standing here some more blacks were 

 seen sneaking up to us from behind the camp. We rode towards 

 them and they fled, only one fellow appearing as if he had a mind to 

 make a stand. No shots were fired. A quarter of a mile further 

 another camp was seen to the right, and a few blacks. Love and 

 Charlie rode after them till recalled. One [of the natives] dropped 

 a spear in his flight. 



There was not much of an ascent to the divide between the 

 valley of Wilson Creek and the next valley ; but the travelling 

 became rather difficult among intricate scrubby gullies, and very 

 disagreeable owing to the rain and fog. Just about the divide we 

 heard NATIVES howling, apparently from a hill to the left, although 

 they were hidden from us by a scrub. Crosbie's party, riding a 

 little ahead of mine, saw some more blacks as they crossed a gully. 

 We were just approaching this gully, the path being down a 

 " point " towards which the scrub converged. Charlie had reached 

 the point of convergence of the scrubs. The pack-horses came 

 next, followed by Macdonald on the left, myself in the middle, 

 land Love on the right. Without any warning, a shower of 

 SPEARS came at us from the scrub to the left. One spear must 

 have passed behind Macdonald's back (he was slightly in advance) 

 land over my horse's neck. It stuck in the near shoulder of Love's 

 horse (Moonlight), brushing my bridle- wrist on its way. It was a 

 inarrow escape for Love, as a few inches back the spear would have 

 transfixed his leg. He tried to pull the spear out of his horse's 

 shoulder, but could not. We dismounted and fired into the 

 :scrub, but we never even saw the enemy, and could only guess at 

 his whereabouts from the angle at which the spears stuck in the 

 :ground. While we were thus engaged the spear dropped out of 

 '.Moonlight's shoulder and was lost in the long grass. It was 

 ;afterwards found that one of the pack-horses (Poodle) had been 

 grazed on the chest by a spear. Pursuit would have been useless 

 in the intricate scrub and long grass. We camped about 2 miles 

 down the gully (ATTACK GULLY) to the north-north-west in open 

 jcountry. (CAMP 20.) Heavy rain began when we arrived at the 

 icamp, and continued for the rest of the day. Our cartridges were 

 : much the worse for the wet, and were dried with considerable 

 'difficulty. We threw the wounded horse and probed and cut open 

 .the wound, but the spear (which could not have been barbed) 

 jhad left nothing behind. It had glanced over the shoulder-blade. 



January 6. This was a fine morning and w r e packed up and 

 jgot away comfortably. We followed the gully for about a mile 

 to the north, when it fell into a creek of the first magnitude (ATTACK 

 CREEK) coming from east-south-east. For a mile further to the 



