My Name's Alf Gibson, And I Want To Go Out With You." I Said, "Well, Can You Shoe?

Can you ride? can you starve?

Can you go without water? and how would you like to be speared by the blacks outside?" He said he could do everything I had mentioned, and he wasn't afraid of the blacks. He was not a man I would have picked out of a mob, but men were scarce, and as he seemed so anxious to come, and as I wanted somebody, I agreed to take him. We got all our horses shod, and two extra sets of shoes fitted for each, marked, and packed away. I had a little black-and-tan terrier dog called Cocky, and Gibson had a little pup of the same breed, which he was so anxious to take that at last I permitted him to do so.

Our horses' loads were very heavy at starting, the greater number of the horses carrying 200 pounds. The animals were not in very good condition; I got the horse I had formerly left here, Badger, the one whose pack had been on fire at the end of my last trip. I had decided to make a start upon this expedition from a place known as Ross's Water-hole in the Alberga Creek, at its junction with the Stevenson, the Alberga being one of the principal tributaries of the Finke. The position of Ross's Water-hole is in latitude 27 degrees 8' and longitude 135 degrees 45', it lying 120 to 130 miles in latitude more to the south than the Mount Olga of my first journey, which was a point I was most desirous to reach. Having tried without success to reach it from the north, I now intended to try from a more southerly line. Ross's Water-hole is called ninety miles from the Peake, and we arrived there without any difficulty. The nights now were exceedingly cold, as it was near the end of July. When we arrived I left the others in camp and rode myself to the Charlotte Waters, expecting to get my old horse Cocky, and load him with 200 pounds of flour; but when I arrived there, the creek water-hole was dry, and all the horses running loose on the Finke. I got two black boys to go out and try to get the horse, but on foot in the first place they could never have done it, and in the second place, when they returned, they said they could not find him at all. I sent others, but to no purpose, and eventually had to leave the place without getting him, and returned empty-handed to the depot, having had my journey and lost my time for nothing.

There was but poor feed at the water-hole, every teamster and traveller always camping there. Some few natives appeared at the camp, and brought some boys and girls. An old man said he could get me a flour-bag full of salt up the creek, so I despatched him for it; he brought back a little bit of dirty salty gravel in one hand, and expected a lot of flour, tea, sugar, meat, tobacco, and clothes for it; but I considered my future probable requirements, and refrained from too much generosity.

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