It will be remembered that when Burke formally appointed Brahé as officer in command of the depôt until Wright should arrive, he was told to await his leader's return to Cooper's Creek, or not to leave it until obliged by absolute necessity. Day after day, week after week passed, and Wright, with the rest of the stores from Menindie, never came. It was more than four months since Burke's party went north, and every day for the last six weeks Brahé had looked out anxiously for their return.
On one hand he was worried by Patten, who was dying, and who wanted to go back to the Darling for advice; on the other, by M'Donough's continually pouring into his ears the assurance that Burke would not return that way, but had doubtless by this time made for some port on the Queensland coast, and had returned to Melbourne by sea; and that if they stayed at the depôt they would all get scurvy, and in the end die of starvation. Though they had sufficient provisions to keep them for another month, they decided to start on the morning of April 21, leaving the box of stores and the note hidden in the earth which the explorers found on their return.
Following their former route towards the Darling, they fell in with Wright's party at Bulloo, where they had been stationary for several weeks, and where three of the men had died of scurvy.
Brahé at once put himself under Wright's orders; but he did not rest until Wright consented to go to Cooper's Creek with him, so that before abandoning the expedition he might feel assured that the explorers had not returned.
Wright and Brahé reached the depôt on May 8, a fortnight after the others had left, and Brahé seeing nothing above ground in the camp to lead him to think anyone had been there, did not trouble to disturb the box which he had originally planted—as Wright suggested the blacks would be more likely to find it; therefore, running their horses several times over the spot, they completed by their thoughtless stupidity the most terrible blunder the explorers had begun.
Wright and Brahé then rejoined the camp at Bulloo, when all moved back to Menindie, and reached that place on June 18.
Brahé at once set off for Melbourne, and by this time everyone there seemed to be alive to the necessity of sending out to look for the explorers.
Two steamers were despatched to the Gulf of Carpentaria, and a relief party, in charge of Alfred Howitt, up to the Cooper.
From South Australia an organised expedition of twenty-six men, with McKinlay as leader, was already engaged in the search, as well as several smaller parties from the neighbouring colonies.