Page:Tracks of McKinlay and party across Australia.djvu/201

 "forced a maniacal laugh from him. With a few shrill cries he let his lubras know no immediate harm was intended, and forth from their place of concealment came these hideous objects of his solicitude. On being questioned as to the white fellows, he led us to an adjacent sand hill, and without hesitation commenced scratching on a spot from which he brought to view a quantity of burnt horsehair, used for the stuffing of saddles. He was then taken to our camp, fed, and more closely examined. A wound on his knee attracting our attention, he showed how he had been shot, by pointing to my gun, and carried from the spot on another native's back. Besides the wound on his knee, there was another bullet-mark on his chest, re-issuing between the shoulders, and four buckshot still protruding from the centre of his back. He corroborated all Bullenjani had said relative to the massacre and its cannibalistic denouement, distinctly stated that four whites were killed, and ultimately departed, leaving his lubras as a hostage, for the purpose of fetching a pistol in the possession of his tribe. &hellip; He said his name was Keri Keri.'"

Got breakfast ready and over without further molestation, and started at 10·30, on a bearing of 197°. At 11·15 reached a recently-flooded richly-grassed flat, surrounded by a margin of trees; the main bulk of it lying south of our course; thence, bearing 202°, stopping twenty minutes for camels, and proceeding, and at 12·30, crossing north-west end of another dry lake or grassed and clovered flat, similar to the other. At 1·20, made a large box creek, with occasional gums, about from fifty to sixty yards wide, and eighteen to twenty feet deep, sandy bottom, where we struck it perfectly dry, where a stream flows to west of north, with immense side creeks (I fancy Cooper's Creek is a