Page:Tracks of McKinlay and party across Australia.djvu/160

 arms by our side, and some slept in their clothes, ready to turn out at a moment's warning; and knowing that there were two or three hundred natives camped on the other side of the lake, it looked like an attack. We all expected it, and I don't think anything would have pleased some of us better than to have had a brush if they meant mischief, though five or six whites to that mob of natives. I should like to have known what really was in the wind. Our native bolting first, then all the women and children coming up to our camp for protection. We tried to fathom it, but, alas, it was no use. They could not understand us, and we, on the other hand, could not make out what they were talking about, so we were obliged to give it up as hopeless. No Blanchewater detachment yet, McKinlay very uneasy about them, though he does not say much.

23rd. Fine and cool to-day, the highest temperature 94°, every appearance of rain, clouds heavy and low, and the wind rising. There was rather a row to-day between two of our fellows, all about a whip. It was thought there would have been a stand-up fight, the odds being about three to one on the little one; but they both thought that discretion was the better part of valour, and let it alone after a good deal of wrangling. I should not have mentioned this incident were it not that I can add that this was the only