Page:Tom Petrie's reminiscences of early Queensland.djvu/34

10. mainland opposite Bribie, swam across to the island. Bob Hunter's body was afterwards recovered, and it had a cut on the arm even as Billy described to my father. The other bodies were never found, and it was thought they were eaten by sharks.

My father had these three men—Billy and the others—working for him afterwards till their death, and found them all right. He was also alone for days with Billy in the forest looking for cedar timber.

An old man called Gray was killed at Bribie Island (July, 1849). This is the blacks' version as told to their friend: Gray used to go to Bribie with a cutter for oysters; he had a blackboy as a help when gathering the oysters on the bank, and he imagined this boy wasn't fast enough in his work, so beat him rather unmercifully, being blest with a bad temper. The boy escaped and ran away from the oyster bank, swimming to the island, and he told the blacks of his ill-treatment. They were worked up to resentment, and went across and killed Gray. Father says of the latter: "I knew poor old Gray well; he was a very cross old man, and many a slap on the side of the head I got from him when a boy."