rocky, when they walked. They camped about a quarter of a mile from the station, at the edge of the dense jungle through which the river flows—a jungle about a quarter of a mile wide in places, and utterly impenetrable except on foot; dense masses of acmenia and other umbrageous trees being bound together with climbing vines and creepers.
Here the blacks remained for a few days, and some of the men took a job to strip bark for the owners of the place. These were two young men of from sixteen to eighteen, so far as their ages can be ascertained from the accounts given by the blacks. Tommy and these two whites were the only residents there; the nearest station was thirty to thirty-five miles distant, and the whole surrounding country, with the exception of the way to this station, is an almost impenetrable scrub.
One morning before noon, when the blacks were about their camp—some sitting by the fire, others preparing to go out to hunt for the day—Tommy came down in company with the two white men. He had a poncho over his shoulders, and his two companions were armed with guns. Edward was sitting by the fire with his brother 'Curlip Tom' on his left hand, and his little son Charley on his right.
From this point I more especially quote 'Curlip Tom,' the previous particulars being derived from several informants:—Curlip Tom, sitting by the side of Edward, heard a noise like the crack of a stockwhip, and Edward threw up his arms and fell back. Curlip Tom jumped up and saw Tommy just behind them with a small pistol with a square barrel in his hand; smoke was coming out of it. He seized his spears, and was in the act of fitting one to the Murrawun to spear Tommy, when the white men covered him with their guns. He let fall his spear and ran into the scrub. All the other blacks had already disappeared into the same shelter, and none remained but Edward (lying on the ground), Tommy, and the two white men. After a while these latter went off, and the blacks came out of the scrub. They found poor Edward not dead, but badly wounded; he had been shot in the back of the neck, and the bullet could be felt under the left ear 'like a stone.'
Hastily the wounded man was placed on a sheet of bark. The men of the party carried him along the edge of the scrub, while the women and children followed a parallel course in the thick river-scrub for safety. After some miles, they found carrying Edward on the sheet of bark became impossible, and his brother stripped a canoe, and, being accounted the best canoeman in the country, took charge of the wounded man down the river, while the others pursued their flight; the men skirting the edge of the jungle, and the women and children travelling in it as before.
In the afternoon the pedestrians had got ahead of the canoe on account of the difficulties attending the navigation of such a small stream from the constant occurrence of logs and large trees fallen across its course. The party, therefore, camped at a little open bend where the jungle was on only one side of the stream, and awaited the canoe bearing the wounded man.
Bolgan and her mother and Charley were sitting by a small fire, when all at once Tommy and the two white men came up on horseback armed as before.
