Alfred Morris joined his brother in a reef the latter had found, and Charlie Stansmore was not at all well.  Thus I was for the time stranded.  There was no difficulty in getting men—­of a sort! but just the right kind of man was not easily found.  My old friend Benstead added one more to the many good turns he has done me by recommending Joe Breaden, who had just finished a prospecting journey with Mr. Carr-Boyd and was looking out for a job.  Benstead had known him from boyhood, in Central Australia, and gave him the highest character—­not higher than he merited, though, as I hope these pages will make clear.  Most of us have, I think, an instinct that tells us at once whether to trust another or the reverse.  One can say on sight, “I have perfect confidence in that man.”  As soon as I saw Breaden I felt a voice within me saying, “That’s just the man you were looking for.”  I told him my plans and the salary I could afford to give him; he, in his silent way, turned me and my project over in his mind for some few minutes before he said the one word “Right,” which to him was as binding as any agreement.

A fine specimen of Greater Britain was Joe Breaden, weighing fifteen stone and standing over six feet, strong and hard, about thirty-five years of age, though, like most back-blockers, prematurely grey, with the keen eye of the hunter or bushman.  His father had been through the Maori War, and then settled in South Australia; Breaden was born and bred in the bush, and had lived his life away up in Central Australia hundreds of miles from a civilised town.  And yet a finer gentleman, in the true sense of the word, I have never met with.  Such men as he make the backbone of the country, and of them Australia may well be proud.  Breaden had with him his black-boy “Warri,” an aboriginal from the McDonnell Ranges of Central Australia, a fine, smart-looking lad of about sixteen years, whom Breaden had trained, from the age of six, to ride and track and do the usual odd jobs required of black-boys on cattle stations.  I had intended getting a discharged prisoner from the native jail at Rotnest.  These make excellent boys very often, though prison-life is apt to develop all their native cunning and treachery.  Warri, therefore, was a distinct acquisition.

Having made so successful a start in the choice of mates, I turned my attention to the purchase of camels.  My idea had been to have twelve, for it seemed to me that a big number of camels was more a handicap than an advantage in country where the chances of finding a large supply of water were so small.  Another excellent reason for cutting down the caravan was the question of expense.  Eventually I decided on nine as being the least we could do with.  Nine of the very best they must be, so I spared no pains in the choosing of them.  Mr. Stoddart, the manager of a large Carrying Company, from whom I bought them, said that he had never come across any one so hard to please!  However, I meant to have none