The days were closing in now, the nights were cold, so we were away before sunrise, and, leaving the rolling sand, came again into mulga thickets, with here and there a grassy flat, timbered with bloodwoods—­the tail end of a creek no doubt rising in the sandstone cliffs we had seen ahead of us.  Shortly after one o’clock a sight, that brought more joy to us than to any Robinson Crusoe, met our eyes—­a track, a fresh footprint of a gin.  Whether to follow it forward or back?  That was the question.  On this might hang more than the lives of the horses.  In nine cases out of ten it is safer to follow them forward—­this was the tenth!  “Which way?” said Godfrey, who was steering.  “Back,” said I, for what reason I cannot say.  So back we followed the lady to see where she had camped, twisting and turning, now losing her tracks, and, casting, finding them again, until we were ready to stamp with impatience and shout D—­n the woman! why couldn’t she walk straight?  Two hours brought us our reward, when an opening in the scrub disclosed a deep-banked creek, fringed with white-stemmed gums, and, beyond, a fire and natives camped.  They all ran, nor did we care, for water must be there.  Glorious sight! a small and green-scummed puddle, nestling beneath the bank, enclosed by a bar of rock and the bed of shingle.  Before many minutes we had the shovels at work, and, clearing away the shingle and sand, found a plentiful supply.  All had ended well, and just in time to save the horses.  Considering the want of feed, and the hardships they had already suffered, they had done a remarkable stage.  A stage of eleven days (from the evening of May 31st to the evening of June 11th)—­a distance of 160 miles on the map, and a good many more allowing for deviations, during which they had but little water.  We had brought them through safely, but at the cost of how much trouble to ourselves may be judged from previous pages and the following figures.  We left the Deep rock-holes with exactly 102 gallons of water; decrease by breaking through the scrub must have been considerable, as we had nearly thirty gallons of this amount in canvas bags.

Added to this must be the 30 gallons we got from the small rock-hole—­that is, 132 gallons in all.  Of this supply the horses had 6 gallons each the first night, 3 gallons each subsequently until the day The Monk died and their ration was stopped.  From 132, we take 90 (the horses’ share).  This leaves 42 gallons for four men and a dog (which drinks as much as a man) for eleven days; this supply was used for washing (an item hardly appreciable), bread-making, drinking, and beef-boiling, the last the most ruinous item; for dry-salted beef is very salt indeed, and unless boiled thoroughly (it should be boiled in two waters) makes one fearfully thirsty.  What would otherwise have been an easy task was made difficult and uncomfortable by the presence of the horses, but we were well rewarded by the satisfaction of seeing them alive at the finish.