105 
Some day they may have to gaze down on the calm Pacific when 
Australia's sous are engaged on its bosom in a death struggle for freedom, 
when " blood stains the snowy foam of the tumultuous deep," and the 
battle thunder rolls higher than the roar of the resounding sea. 
On the night of the 25th the thermometer fell to 30 degrees, or 2 
degrees of frost, 14 degrees lower than Sir William Macgregor found the 
coldest air on the highest peaks of the Owen Stanley Kange, though 
he saw large icicles and was above the snow line. On the 26th the 
temperature only rose to 40 degrees at midday. We were unable to 
sleep much at night, finding it impossible to keep sufficiently w^arm. 
The 26th was the first fine day on the summit, and Harold, Multarri, 
and myself went over the centre peak and about a mile beyond, along 
the crest of the mountain. 
Eeceived a note from Whelan to say he would not be able to 
rejoin us for a couple of weeks, on account of the murders by the 
blacks on the Upper Eussell. 
From the south peak of Wooroonooran we overlooked the scene 
of these murders. On the 27th, we all left the summit for the Palm 
Camp at 4,000 feet. 
We arrived there at noon, and I left Bailey and Broadbent with 
two blackboys and a week's provisions to stay collecting for four or 
five days. Continuing on dov/n the mountain with Harold and two 
blackboys, w^e arrived at the Pools and found two of the troopers in 
charge of the tent. One night Susie, a Thursday Island boy, had a 
visit from a myall. Susie was seated inside the tent just at dusk, and 
had the candle lighted. Suddenly a black hand w^as pushed under the 
canvas, and was seizing a tin of preserved beef, when Susie called out, 
" What name that fellow ?" Then the myall actually had the audacity 
to come round and. sit down on a stone at the door of the tent. Susie 
had my Snider rifle in his hand, and when he raised it — just as a mere 
formality — the myall started for distant climes. Susie says the rifle 
went off somehow or other, and that the myall did the first hundred 
yards in nine seconds. On another night Terrick w^as in charge of 
the same camp, when an old man myall, of the true cannibal breed, 
strolled softly up about 5 o'clock in the evening. Terrick' s yarn was that 
he told the ancient warrior to come back when " master" was at home, 
and that the visitor thereupon politely departed. There is still a grave 
doubt hanging over the nature of the reception accorded to both visitors. 
At the Pools, on the 27th, the water w^as 56 degrees, and the air 58 degrees 
at night. The water was the same night and day. On the 28th we 
loaded up to remove the Pools camp to the base of supplies at the foot 
of Barnard's Spur. On arrival there I found Beman alone, camped 
under a pile of dead grass at the foot of a tree, and the whole of our 
things stowed away in the scrub. He had neither tent nor firearms. 
Had the blacks come in he would have been a gone coon, and so would 
all our goods. The mistake arose partly through one of the boys, and 
partly through Beman' s own weakness ni allowing a trooper, in error, 
to take away the rifle and the tent. The arrangement I made provided 
for a blackboy always in company with Beman, as neither for his sake 
nor our own would 1 have left a new chum alone in such a dangerous 
locality. Immediately on arrival I sent the troopers home to the 
Police Camp on the Mul grave to start out with AVhelan next morning. 
Whelan regarded his sojourn with us as highly advantageous to 
himself and his troopers, as it gave him and them valuable information 
