BY CHAS H. EDEN.


HOW WE EXPLORED THE MACALISTER RIVER.

The reader who has been good enough to follow me so far, will see that
hitherto our efforts had been unattended with the slightest success, and
that the fate of the missing schooner and her living freight still
remained buried in the deepest mystery. To say that we were not
disheartened by our numerous disappointments would be untrue, for we
well knew that each closing day rendered our chances of affording relief
to the survivors more and more difficult; so much so, in fact, that at
the council assembled to discuss the matter in the large dining-room of the
hotel, several voices urged the expediency of abandoning any further
attempts. Much valuable time, they remarked, had been already expended by
men to whom time represented money, nay more -- the means of living. Their
own avocations imperiously demanded their presence, and although they were
the last men in the world to desert their fellow-beings in extremity,
still, in a country where every man lived by the sweat of his own brow,
self-interest could not be entirely sacrificed.

[ILLUSTRATION -- AUSTRALIANS IN CAMP.]

Even we, who were most anxious to organise another expedition, could not
but acknowledge that the searchers had much justice on their side; but when
we were discussing matters in rather a despondent tone, a new ally came to
the front in the person of Jack Clarke, the horse-breaker.

"Where do you propose going next?" he asked Dunmore.