More blacks were met with who confirmed the tale, and one guided them to a water hole in a brigalow scrub, which she said was the place where the tragedy was enacted. She also stated that she was present, and entered into a most minute description of the affair, describing the whole attack. Not the vestige of a trace could be found to give any colour to her story, but ten miles down the river an unmistakeable camping ground was found. There was a tree marked L, the letter being roughly cut into the bark, and inside the letter, X V A was carved; also there were indications that proved that a party of whites had been camped there during wet weather.
Still led on by the natives, Hely at last reached the Nivelle River, when his guides deserted him, and he returned.
On the Warrego he found another camp with a marked tree, exactly similar to the first one, the X V A being repeated, so that it could not have been intended to mean any distinguishing number. He also noticed amongst the natives some tomahawks formed from the battered gullet plates of saddles. His search served only to deepen the mystery around Leichhardt's fate.
The meaning of the marked tree discovered on the Warrego is perplexing, both on account of the recurring letters and its connection with an old camping ground of some white party. Mitchell's party were camped in the neighbourhood for some time; his camps were marked from XLI. to XLIll., but the weather was fine and dry during his stay. Kennedy encamped twice in the locality, and he had with him a man named Luff, whereas no name in Mitchell's camp began with L; but he, too, crossed the river when the weather was dry, and no bushman could possibly make a mistake about the state of the country during the time a large party had remained stationary in a certain position.
The most likely explanation is that these marks had nothing whatever to do with either Mitchell, Kennedy or Leichhardt, having probably been made by some private party out run hunting.
This futile effort to track up the lost explorer has led us away from Western Australia, where again the desert country was to be encountered, and again fruitlessly.
In 1854, Mr. Robert Austin, Assistant Surveyor-General, was given charge of a party to search for available pastoral country, and also (for now the gold fever was at its height), to examine the interior for auriferous deposits.
They started from the head of the Swan River, on a northeasterly course, and on the 16th of July, reached the Cow-cowing Lake, reported by the aborigines, and hoped by the colonists, to be a sheet of fresh water in the Gascoyne valley. The take proved to be dry, and the bed covered with salt incrustation, showing its character when full. Thence Austin made directly north, and passed through the wretchedly-repellent country that seemed fated to always cross the path of the western explorer; he directed his course to a distant range of table-topped hills and peaks. Here they found feed and water, and named the highest point Mount Kenneth, after one of the party, Mr. Kenneth Brown. From thence to the north-east they traversed stony plains, broken by sandstone and ironstone ridges, and intersected by the dry beds of sandy watercourses; and in this country, one of the worst possible misfortunes happened to them. Their horses got on to a patch of poison plant, and nearly the whole of them were laid up in consequence, and unfit for work. Some few escaped, but the greater number never recovered the effects of the weed, and many died. Pushing hastily on to a safer place to recruit, Austin found himself so crippled by this accident, that he had to abandon all but his most necessary stores for no less than fourteen of the horses having succumbed.
They now turned north-west to make for Shark's Bay, where a vessel was to be sent to render them assistance or bring them away, as should be desired.
Their course to Shark's Bay led them over country that offered them no temptation to linger on the way. On the 21st September they found a cave in the face of a cliff, in which were drawings similar to those seen by Gray near the Prince Regent's River. Near this cave was a spring, and, while resting at this camp, one of the party, a young man named Charles Farmer, accidentally shot himself in the arm, and in spite of the most careful attention, the poor fellow died of lock-jaw, in terrible agony. He was buried at the cave spring camp, and the highest hill in the neighbourhood called Mount Farmer after him. Thus two lonely mountains in the desert interior watch over the graves of men who first saw them-Mount Poole and Mount Farmer.