. A dry stage, however long, with the certainty of relief at the
end of it, gives little cause for anxiety when compared with one on which
neither the position nor even the existence of water can be known.

Next morning we followed up a small creek, and on crossing saw the tracks
of several kangaroos and emus making towards two peaks of quartz. Here was
our chance. It was my place of course to go, but I yielded to the
persuasion of Paddy and Jim, who insisted that I had denied myself water
to eke out our scanty supply (though I doubt if I had done so more than
they), and must rest. So, putting the camels down in the welcome shade of
a kurrajong, I lay down beside them and was presently relieved by the
sound of a revolver-shot, our signal that water was found.

What a beautiful sight it was! Nestling in the hollow between two great
white blows of quartz, this little pool of crystal-clear water, filled
evidently by a little gully falling over a steep ledge of quartz beyond,
presented no doubt a pretty picture after the rains. A soakage it must be,
for no open rock-hole could hold water in such terrible heat; and its
clearness would suggest the possibility of an underlying spring. A popular
drinking-place this, frequented by birds of all kinds, crows, hawks,
pigeons, galahs, wee-jugglers, and the ubiquitous diamond-sparrows. During
the night we could hear wallabies hopping along, but were too worn out to
sit up to shoot them. Though our sufferings had not been great, we had had
a "bit of a doing."

One day's rest, occupied in various mendings of clothes, boots, and
saddles, and we were off again to the north, cutting the track as
expected, and presently found ourselves at the newly established mining
camp of Lawlers, prettily situated on the banks of a gum-creek, with a
copious supply of water in wells sunk in its bed. A great advantage that
the northern fields have over those further south is the occurrence of
numerous creeks, sometimes traceable for over thirty miles, in all of
which an abundance of fresh water can be obtained by sinking at depths
varying from fifteen to fifty feet.

Towards the end of their course the well-defined channels, with banks
sometimes ten feet high, disappear, giving place to a grassy avenue
through the scrub, lightly timbered with cork-bark, and other small trees.
It is on such flats as these that the wells are sunk. All creeks find
their way into the lakes, though seldom by a discernible c