n of the tracks, of any one having been here since I
left it. The water was all but gone. The solitary eagle still was
there. I wondered what could have become of Gibson; he certainly had
never come here, and how could he reach the fort without doing so?

I was in such a miserable state of mind and body, that I refrained
from more vexatious speculations as to what had delayed him: I stayed
here, drinking and drinking, until about ten a.m., when I crawled away
over the stones down from the water. I was very footsore, and could
only go at a snail's pace. Just as I got clear of the bank of the
creek, I heard a faint squeak, and looking about I saw, and
immediately caught, a small dying wallaby, whose marsupial mother had
evidently thrown it from her pouch. It only weighed about two ounces,
and was scarcely furnished yet with fur. The instant I saw it, like an
eagle I pounced upon it and ate it, living, raw, dying--fur, skin,
bones, skull, and all. The delicious taste of that creature I shall
never forget. I only wished I had its mother and father to serve in
the same way. I had become so weak that by late at night, I had only
accomplished eleven miles, and I lay down about five miles from the
Gorge of Tarns, again choking for water. While lying down here, I
thought I heard the sound of the foot-falls of a galloping horse going
campwards, and vague ideas of Gibson on the Fair Maid--or she without
him--entered my head. I stood up, and listened, but the sound had died
away upon the midnight air. On the 1st of May, as I afterwards found,
at one o'clock in the morning, I was walking again, and reached the
Gorge of Tarns long before daylight, and could again indulge in as
much water as I desired; but it was exhaustion I suffered from, and I
could hardly move.

My reader may imagine with what intense feelings of relief I stepped
over the little bridge across the water, staggered into the camp at
daylight, and woke Mr. Tietkens, who stared at me as though I had been
one, new risen from the dead. I asked him had he seen Gibson, and to
give me some food. I was of course prepared to hear that Gibson had
never reached the camp; indeed I could see but two people in their
blankets the moment I entered the fort, and by that I knew he could
not be there. None of the horses had come back, and it appeared that I
was the only one of six living creatures--two men and four
horses--that had returned, or were now ever likely to return, from
th