ounds, and could follow a trail
by scent or marks indistinguishable by the white man.

On representing the case to the chief of the police, that officer
deputed a detective and a couple of constables, with a number of the
"Black Police" to accompany Smith and his friend to Jones's ranch. They
took a circuitous route, arriving as before at the stockyard without
giving information to the hutkeeper, but at the same time directing two
men to approach the hut unseen and watch it till further directions.

When the party on this occasion approached the stockyard Jones was not
occupying his usual seat on the rails. The black trackers, on being
shown the place and their work explained to them, they at once commenced
the hunt. One of them presently picked up a rail which was lying near by
on which he pointed out certain marks, calling them "white man's hair"
and "white man's blood." Then after examining the ground around the
stockyard they took up the trail leading into the bush at a point where
Jones was seen to go. Working up this for some two hundred yards and
pointing out various signs as they proceeded, they arrived at a small
slimy lagoon or pond, on the edge of which they picked up something they
called "white man's fat." Some of them now dived into the pond, where
they discovered the body of Jones, or what remained of it.

The hutkeeper was immediately arrested, but denied any knowledge of the
matter. After consigning the body of the unfortunate rancher to a
hurried grave, the prisoner was taken to Melbourne, where he was tried
for the murder of his master, and when he was convicted and sentenced,
he confessed that he had crept up behind Jones when he sat smoking on
the stockyard rail and killed him by a blow on the head with the rail
picked up by the black trackers, that he then dragged the body to the
bush, and threw it into the lagoon. I do not recollect whether Butler
told us if the real object of the murder transpired, but the murderer
turned out to be a ticket-of-leave convict well known to the police. The
peculiarity of the story lay in the fact that the apparition of Jones
twice appearing to his friend, and on one occasion to a stranger also,
was sworn to in Court during the trial.

I was obliged, owing to business, to leave Mesopotamia in midwinter, and
to save a very circuitous journey I decided to travel down the gorge of
the Rangitata some twenty-five miles, to the station I referred to once
before belongin