Hely was sent to search for his tracks, but without avail. Hely was played upon by the blacks, who pretended to show him several of Leichhardt's camping grounds, and finally the bones of the murdered party. They turned out, however, to be mutton-bones, and the search ended in nothing. Mr. A. C. Gregory, himself a distinguished explorer, led two expeditions with the same object in view, and discovered a tree marked "L," which may or may not have been made by Leichhardt. Walker, when searching for Burke and Wills, believed he had found some traces of the missing expedition; but these marks were again successfully contested by Landsborough. Still later a Mr. Skuthorpe, in a most mercenary fashion, tried to persuade the public, and especially the Government of New South Wales, that he had discovered certain relics of the expedition, including Leichhardt's journal in good preservation; but the affair was looked upon as an imposition, and nothing further has transpired. It cannot be said with certainty that a single trace of Leichhardt has been discovered since he wrote his letter from the Fitzroy Downs.
