had been found, and which I
therefore considered a sort of reply to my note. If we were right as to
the nights, this must have taken place on the very day on which I had
passed that way, and when my eye eagerly caught at every dark-coloured
distant object in hopes of finding him! After the deviation to the
north-west it appears that Mr. Cunningham made some detours about a clear
plain, at one side of which his horse had been tied for a considerable
time, and where it is probable he had passed his third night, as there
were marks where he had lain down in the long dry grass. From this point
only his horse's tracks had been traced, not his own steps which had
hitherto accompanied them; and from the twisting and turning of the
course to where it lay dead, we supposed he had not been with the horse
after it left this place. The whip and straps seemed to have been trod
off from the bridle-reins to which Mr. Cunningham was in the habit of
tying his whip, and to which also the straps had been probably attached,
to afford the animal more room to feed when fastened to trees.

To the place therefore where Mr. Cunningham's own steps had last been
seen I hastened on the morning of the 29th April with the same men,
Muirhead and Whiting, who had so ably and humanely traced all the tracks
of the horse, through a distance of 70 miles.

The spot seemed well chosen as a halting-place, being at a few trees
which advanced beyond the rest of the wood into a rather extensive plain:
a horse tied there could have been seen from almost any part around, and
it is not improbable that Mr. Cunningham left the animal there fastened,
and that it had afterwards got loose, and had finally perished for want
of water.

We soon found the print of Mr. Cunningham's footsteps in two places: in
one, coming towards the trees where the horse had been tied, from a thick
scrub east of them; in the other, leading from these trees in a direction
straight northward. Pursuing the latter steps we found them continuous in
that direction and, indeed, remarkably long and firm, the direction being
preserved even through thick brushes.

This course was direct for the Bogan; and it was evident that, urged by
intense thirst, he had at length set off with desperate speed for the
river, having parted from his horse, where the party had supposed. That
he had killed and eaten the dog in the scrub, whence his footsteps had
been seen to emerge was probable, as no trace of the