LOST IN THE BUSH

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 22, 26 January 1924, Page 7

LOST IN THE BUSH

WOMAN'S TERRIBLE SUFFERING.

(PRO* ■ OUR OWN CORRESPONDING) SYDNEY, 17th January. The story of the wonderful fidelity of a dog and the fortitude of a woman in surviving terrible privations while lost m the bush have been revealed by the details pf her sufferings related in the. Bundaberg Hospital by Mrs. John Williams.

Mrs. Williams lives near Wallum in a lonely ami wild part of Queensland, and-.it transpires that while fetching a bucket full of water from the creek she temporarily lost her memory—supposedly the effect of the terrible heat that has recently, been experienced—and wandered off into the bush. When the settlers learnt that she was missing the settlers turned out to a man, as they always do in such emergencies, and .scoured the district for miles round Days passed, and it was thought that it was impossible that Without food she could have survived the blazing heat. Still tHey persevered, the police and black-trackers participating in the search. Sometimes the trackers would pick up the scent and follow it for a while, but over the rough parched ground and through the. thick scrub it was continually being lost. Then rain fell, and this, as it turned out, probably saved the woman's life, for it providentially enabled her to get some water when the pangs of thirst had become almost intolerable. Heartened by the conjecture that this might be the case, the searchers persevered, and at .the end of a week from the time she was first missing, when all but forlorn hope had been given up, a poor, miserable little dog, emaciated and bedraggled, limped up to af blacktracker and policeman. Fol, lowing the dog through'dense scrub they came upon the woman sheltering from the ram in a hollow stump. Almost too exhausted to speak, she asked the blacktracker if he had been looking for her, and when he answered in the affirmative she answered, "I am glad you found me alive. God bless you all," and practically collapsed. It was with difficulty that she was carried over the rough' country to th e township, but on reaching the hospital the doctor \ was surprised to find that, in spittTof hay, ing been a full week without food and several days without water until the rain fell, she was in a fairly good state of health. Her clothes were torn, her feet terribly sore, and her face burnt by the sun,, but she quickly responded to the careful treatment, and when she could tell her story her principal theme was the devotion of the little dog, which had refused steadfastly to. leave her, though suffering equally from want of food and exposure to the sun. "Thin and limping," she said, ''it Would jump up and follow me whenever I made another effort to find my way to some habitation. I tried to induce it to re^ turn home, thinking it might find it on its own, but it would cower and whin? if I did anything which made it think that I was angry. I think it was its self-sacrifice and bravery aW its company which helped me to keep up and live through all those nights with nothing to look forward to but another of those awful, awful burning days."