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they had no wish to make trouble, and might even be of some assistance. Surprisingly, the leader of the band greeted the travellers in a few quaint words of English which he was later found to have learned from the only surviving member of Burke’s party two years before. This was a man named King, whom the blacks had taken at the point of death and cared for until found by a search party. Seeing now that the white men’s tongues were swollen and turning black with thirst the natives led them without delay to a little rocky outcrop where, undera cover of brushwood and stones, was a well of stagnant but precious water. Later they came with food—fat yellow grubs dug up from the roots of the mulga trees, a black goanna lizard to be roasted in hot ashes with hard little cakes made from the pounded seed of the nardoo, a little mud-growing plant that left its fruit-cases in the hardened ground. Repulsive as it sounds, it was a feast for the starving men, who revived quickly and began asking about the country further on. The black leader shook his head, and scowling, pointed with his chin to the south.
    â€˜Go!’ he told them and then pointed to the northwest. ‘That way—no water. Nussing!’
    They were about to do as he advised when a flight of parrots went wheeling overhead towards the north-west, and believing this to be a sure sign of water in that direction the white men decided to push on. From this it will be seen how much it meant to them to find this new country. They lived on crows and by sucking moisture from a succulent plant known as parakeelia but found little water for the horses, and when all but two had died they realized their foolishness in having gone on so stubbornly.
    The blacks had disappeared, but it could be seen from the smokes of their fires that they were never far away. It was only when, in a desperation of thirst, they shot their last horse and drank from its jugular vein that the blacks appeared again. Realizing that the foolhardy strangers had given in at last, they led them back, resting from time to time at the secret little reservoirs of this arid land, until at last, from down the course of a dry creek, came the welcome sound of a horse bell. Members of their party had come insearch of them with beef and tea in their tucker bags and canteens of water on their backs.
    The blacks had vanished before the rescue party came in sight, not expecting any thanks or reward, but both Patsy and Costello vowed that they would never forget the kindness of these primitive people in their hour of need.
    It might well be thought that Patsy and Costello would have learned a lesson from this experience, but already they were talking of what the parched country must look like in a good season, when the grass was green, the running rivers full of fish and the land abounding in wild game.
    â€˜I still believe,’ Patsy said, ‘that drought or no drought those birds were heading for a good home out there to the north-west.’
    Costello agreed. ‘We can’t have it said we were beaten the first try.’
    As usual Patsy composed a song to suit the occasion. He tells the story of a drover who perished with his cattle in just such a drought as they had left behind and whose ghost was sometimes to be heard wailing eerily as he drove his ghost mob on in the desolate drought wind.

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    â€˜Cheerily sings the drover
    With his stock so fat and sleek,
    Up to the border and over
    His fortune for to seek.
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    Merrily sings the drover,
    For with luck upon his side,
    There’ll be Mitchell grass and clover
    And creeks ten miles wide.

    Dismally sings the drover
    For himself and his luck fell out,
    But still he rides on like a lover
    Into the arms of the drought.
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    Mournfully sings the drover
    As his stock die one by one,
    Wild dogs and eagles hover
    And bones turn white in the sun.
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    Wearily sighs the drover
    As he lies him down on the plain
    To sleep with his