Free To Ride a Fine Horse by Mary Durack Page A

Western Australia, and for this purpose Patsy and his brother Stumpy Michael took ship from Sydney. Forrest told them how he had found and named a number of splendid rivers, and that but for sickness breaking out in his party he would have liked to follow a big stream he named the Ord and which appeared to run north, probably emptying into Cambridge Gulf. He had dotted in its most likely course on the almost empty map and predicted that the country it watered could well be the answer to a land seeker’s dream.

    Back in Goulburn Patsy and Mr Emanuel decided to finance an expedition to explore south from Cambridge Gulf, follow the course of the Ord to Forrest’s peg and then strike out for the west coast, where they could pick up a chartered ship. Before long Patsy, his brother and Mr Emanuel had made all arrangements, purchased equipment and selected a party. Stumpy Michael, who by this time had the name for being one of the best bushmen in Queensland, had been appointed leader of the expedition, with Tom Kilfoyle, Darby Durack’s brother-in-law, as his second in command. Mr Emanuel’s twenty-one-year-old son Sidney, the latter’s ex-tutor John Pentacost, a surveyor and geologist and two others completed the party.
    A vessel had been chartered to take the men with twenty-three horses, stores and equipment from Brisbane to Darwin. Here they hired a second, smaller ship to bring them to Cambridge Gulf and also took on two Aboriginal boys, known as Pannikin and Pint-pot. After a rough trip in which several precious horses were killed by the rolling of the ship they made a landing near what they thought to be the mouth of the Ord River.
    The Captain of the vessel was loath to leave the little party in this lonely and unknown land and had grave doubts that they could survive the long journey of some six hundred miles with so few horses. He liked even less the way, on the night of their arrival, native fires had sprung up on the surrounding hills. The two Darwin boys were full of the usual stories about the savagery and treachery of the Kimberley tribes and camped close to the white man’s fire.
    There were setbacks from the beginning, for the river they had thought the Ord soon petered out, and one stream after another disappointed them by turning in the wrong direction. Rough, mountainous country wore down their horses’ hoofs and travelling was difficult and slow.
    Natives surrounded them nightly and appeared to be following them at a distance, until one day a host of naked warriors appeared suddenly behind them, with threatening spears. Stumpy Michael felt that to fire on them would be a fatal mistake and instead ordered his men to remain quietly while he rode forward steadily with his hands outstretched. The oncoming natives paused but others leapt from behind with flaming branches and set alight the tall, rank grass. Luckily the wind was blowing in the opposite direction and at last the blacks, trapped between a river and the fire, were forced to jump into the water and swim for their lives.
    At last, after the loss of several more horses, the weary travellers found the Ord and continued on their way to the coast. They had been forced to leave a great deal of equipment to lighten the load for their remaining mounts, which were too weak and footsore to be ridden over the last few hundred miles. The explorers, whose boots had long since worn out, had to stumble along with only rags and hessian to protect their blistered feet. Fever added to their discomforts, and when they reached the coast at last, after six months’ hard travelling, the ship they had arranged to pick them up had come and gone again, thinking they must have met with disaster. They waited six weeks on the beach at Beagle Bay until the vessel returned to see whether they had turned up in the meantime.

    At last . . . the weary travellers found the Ord . . .
 
    Alexander Forrest met them on their arrival at