Page:Extracts from the letters and journals of George Fletcher Moore.djvu/298

 272 wishes him taken, but no one likes to be the captor. How could any person, unless a professed blood-hunter, spring upon a man in cold blood, and lead him to the death? How could any one who has a heart fire upon him treacherously from a secure ambush, though he be an unfeeling and reckless savage? There is something in his daring which one is forced to admire.

In the evening I heard a trampling of horses, and Captains Irwin and Dale arrived. I told the story; they both gallopped off immediately for the soldiers.

28th.—A party was out last night after Ya-gan, but without success.

The Government have sent a band of resolute men here to do their utmost to take him. The man who commands this party is called "Hunt," a most appropriate name. On one occasion he followed a party of natives for thirteen days and nights, thinking it was Ya-gan's tribe; at last he got into such a situation that the natives attacked his party. He shot the most forward, who turned out to be Midgegoroo's brother. Hunt was a constable in London; he has just been here to request I would send him word if Ya-gan appears again in this quarter: his party is to lie "perdu" at Mr. Bull's for some time.

29th.—No appearance of the natives here to-day. I have heard that Ya-gan has been seen at