In due course we reached the telegraph line, without enthusiasm or
interest, and turned along the road to Hall's Creek with hardly a word.
Stony hills and grass plains and numerous small creeks followed one
another as our march proceeded, and that night, the first in December, we
experienced a Kimberley storm. The rain started about 2 a.m., and in
twenty minutes the country was a sea of water; our camp was flooded, and
blankets and packs soaked through and through. The next morning every
creek was running a banker and every plain was a bog. However, the camels
behaved well and forded the streams without any fuss. That day we met
some half-civilised natives, who gave us much useful information about
Hall's Creek. With them we bartered a plug of tobacco for a kangaroo
tail, for we wanted meat and they a smoke. They had just killed the
animal, and were roasting it whole, HOLUS-BOLUS, unskinned and undressed.
We saw several mobs of grey kangaroos feeding in the timber--queer,
uncanny beasts, pretty enough when they jump along, but very quaint when
feeding, as they tuck their great hind legs up to try and make them match
the fore.

On December 4th we arrived at Hall's Creek; the first man we met was
Sergeant Brophy, of the Police--the first white face we had seen since
July 21st. At Hall's Creek at last, after a somewhat prolonged journey of
1,413 miles, counting all deviations.




CHAPTER XV