"But what did I care about a wheen niggers? 'Ye needna wait for me,' I shouted back, 'I'll fetch the beastie a' richt, and cut your trail afore you've travelled a dozen miles.'" Mackay stopped and sighed deeply.
"And what happened?" asked Wentworth and Armstrong almost with one breath.
"Heaven only knows, my lads. I never saw any of the party again. I tracked up Misery—that was the camel's name—but he took me a gey long travel, and it was late at night when I started to go back, but though I pushed hard to the south'ard until well into the next day, I couldna pick up a sign o' a track. A camel's pad is no easily missed, and though the ground was more broken and hilly than usual, I felt sure I couldna have crossed their route o' march. Back I went again, examining the ground maist carefully, then a' at once I got a sair shock. I came on a soft patch o' sand, and every bit o' it was marked wi' natives' footprints. I could see the marks o' their big, flat feet everywhere round aboot, and they telt me as plainly as if I had seen the niggers themselves that they had come in from the east, and had gone back over their ain tracks within the last half-dozen hours. I needna tell ye what I feared then. Though I hadna had a drink o' water nor a bite to eat since I left the camp, a' thought o' hunger or thirst left me, as I traced the nigger tracks backwards to the west. They took me straight to our old camp where Misery had broken away, and what do you think I saw there?"
The boys shook their heads wonderingly.
"Only bones; bones, in the middle o' a lot o' ashes which were still warm, and the smell o' burnin' was like the stench o' a nigger corroboree. I turned again on their tracks. I must have been mad, for one man could do little against a tribe that had wiped out one of the finest expeditions that ever ventured into the Never Never Land, but I was desperate, and I tracked the skunks like a bloodhound. My throat was parched, my tongue was too big for my jaws, but I felt that I would gang under wi' pleasure if I could only get my rifle sights on the brutes first. But I couldna get even that satisfaction. Before I had gone far I was stopped by a mountain that seemed to rise like a wall straight from the flats. I hadn't seen it before, so I may have followed further than I thought, or maybe the sand haze had hidden it from our view. No one has ever believed that a mountain like it exists in that country, and I'm the only white man that knows it to be there. I was too weak to climb it, and after three or four tries I sat at the bottom and just raved.
"How I returned beats me yet to understand. The water-bag on Misery's back was empty, and our last spring charted was fifty miles to westward, wi' five hundred miles beyond that again to a mining camp. I'm no navigator, only a bushman, but somehow I got back, the only survivor of the party, and I felt like a murderer comin' in alone. I was the Chief's righthand man for ten years, my lads, and a straighter or better-hearted leader never lived. Then there was my old comrade Stewart wi' the red hair, wha I used to misca' so sairly; Pioneer Bill the bushman, and young Morris the geologist—they're a' gone, and I'm the puir unfortunate that's left.... I came home here wi' the intention o' stoppin' if I could; but the bush draws me back and I must go."
"I am very, very sorry," said Wentworth, breaking the pause that followed; "I can appreciate your feelings most deeply. It must be a vast country, that Never Never Land."
"It has claimed many a victim, my boy," answered Mackay. "But Western Australia is not all the same," he hastened to add cheerfully. "Around Kalgoorlie and north into Pilbarra the richest gold mines in the world have been found, and it's the thought that there's a treasure-house o' gold and gems in the far-back land that makes explorers risk their lives in that awful desert. It's the chance o' striking Eldorado that sends us wanderers into such out o' way corners o' the world. But I didna ask ye here to tell ye my experiences. If you have really made up your minds to go to Australia, an' I honestly believe it's the best country for any young man, I'll no' only advise you, but I'll accompany you, and I can say this, that what I dinna know about gold mining is no' worth knowing. I have never made a fortune at the game, but there's no denyin' that fortunes have been made. I've taken a fancy to you, my laddies, and I'll see that you come to no harm. If ye're short o' lucre," he continued, "I'll advance ye anything ye need."
Even Wentworth's reserve utterly broke down after this speech.