It Is Now Absolutely Necessary To Kill A Horse For Food, As Our Ammunition Is All But Gone.

Mr. Tietkens and I went to find a spot to erect a smoke-house, which required a soft bank for a flue; we got a place half a mile away.

Thermometer 104 degrees. Mr. Tietkens and I commenced operations at the smoke-house, and the first thing we did was to break the axe handle. Gibson, who thought he was a carpenter, blacksmith, and jack-of-all-trades by nature, without art, volunteered to make a new one, to which no one objected. The new handle lasted until the first sapling required was almost cut in two, when the new handle came in two also; so we had to return to the camp, while Gibson made another handle on a new principle. With this we worked while Gibson and Jimmy shod a couple of horses. A pair of poking brutes of horses are always away by themselves, and Mr. Tietkens and I went to look for, but could not find them. We took the shovel and filled up the emu water-hole with sand, so that the horses had to show themselves with the others at the pass at night. For two or three days we shod horses, shot pigeons, and worked at the smoke-house. I did not like the notion of killing any of the horses, and determined to make a trip eastwards, to see what the country in that direction was like.

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