LOST IN RANGES.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18591, 16 January 1926, Page 17

LOST IN RANGES.

PARTY OF BOY SCOUTS.

THREE DAYS' HARDSHIPS

(yaoil OUB OW\* COREESrONJJEXT.)

SYDNEY, January o

Much uneasiness was caused in tho Rockhampton district of Queensland by the disappearance for three days of a party of sis Boy Scouts in charge of Major B. G. Patterson, Scout Commissioner for Central Queensland; and on their return to town they related a tale of hardships and food shortage that tested all their scoutcraft to overcome. The boys were members of a. party of twenty that left Rockhampton on December 26th for a holiday trek on tho Blackdown Tableland, a part- of the Exhibition Range about L'j miles from Rockhampton. It reached tho tableland on December 23th. On the following afternoon, six of tho boys, with Major Patterson and a guido named Lindorc who lives in the neighbourhood, loft the camp to visit a waterfall. Thev had not returned by tho afternoon of December 31st, and after making a Futile search, the party at the camp informed a station-owner, who organised a search, with tho as.sistanco polico and blacktrackors. Late in the afternoon, tho tnissi'ng party with tlie exception of Lindore, reached a stockyard, which proved to bo near their camn. Lindoro was found tho next morning. Behind this bare story of the wanderings of tho party lies a story of hardships, of nights spent in eaves, with an iguana and a couple of lizards as their only food. After leaving the camp on December 29th, the party had encountered a network of creeks, and their guide followed tho wrong one. That night they camped in a cave, which bore on tho walls in red ochre sketches by aborigines. Next morning the party followed the orcok <low! 1. and reached a gorge hundreds of feet deep. Then they followed another creek, but this only led them further into the heart of tho silent, lonely bush. Then Lindore, the guide, suggested that he should tr Tr and reach tli© camp by himself, and this proposal was agreed to.

Night in a Cave. Tlio night of December 30th was also spent in a cave. Attempts were made at smoke signals, but the fires failed, owing to the grass being damp. The boys captured a couple of lizards, as food they had brought had become exhausted, and then ono of the party scaled a tree, and after a struggle knocked an iguana to tho ground. The lizards and iguana, "blacktella food, were boiled and eaten, and tho hungry scouts reckoned them the best food they had ever tasted. Tho next night they again camped in a cave, after a day of walking through extremely rough country, and again they resorted to reptiles of the bush for their food. The New Year dawned miserably for the small party. It seemed that they would never regain civilised settlement, but cheerfully thev set out and travelled over what proved to be the roughest country of their three clays' experience. " The boys' stockings were torn and tlieir limbs were bruised and cut. But that day their wanderings came to an end, and that they had not been wandering aimlessly was proved by the fact that they came out of the lonely bush so close to the camp they had been seeking for three days. The guide Lindore, who was not found until the following morning, had lost himself on the way back, and he was exhausted when a police constable and a tracker camo upon him. Major Patterson said that he had wanted a somewhat more strenuous camp than that usually undergone by scouts, but this experience had been far too strenuous. "Nevertheless," he added cheerfully, "it turned into a wonderful test for practical and disciplinary training given in the Scout movement."