OVERCOME BY THIRST.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20725, 19 November 1930, Page 8

OVERCOME BY THIRST.

GRIM DESERT TRAGEDY.

TWO MERCIFUL BULLET*,

BODIES LYING SIDE BY SIDE.

[FROM OCR OWN CORRESPONDENT.] SYDNEY. Nov. 13. Two bodies, lying side by Bide, nea Lake Naberoo, about 100 miles north-weg of Wiluna, Western Australia, told a mor eloquent story of the awful diama of thi interior that had preceded the deaths 0 two men than if they had lived to recount it.

The discovery of the bodies followed 1 three-day search by police and black, trackers for Harry Dyer and Laureno Raunio, members of a party of four whicl left Wiluna recently to prospect and t< shoot kangaroos. On Monday of last week two of the men returned to Wiluna and told the police that the others left th« camp with water supply sufficient for 24 hours, but did not return within that time and did not reply to the smoki signals that were sent up.

A search party was at once organised, and the nature of the country in which it was feared that the men were lost wai such that great care had to be taken to avert further tragedies. The party set out as soon as possible, and after an ex. hausting search found both men dead with severe bullet wounds. Death appeared to have been instantaneous.

A dead kangaroo from which the blood had been drained gave the search party a lead to the awful story that was behind the death of these two"men. Their water was exhausted, and weak from trekking through the parched country Dyer and Raunio saw a Jake. It was evident that they made for this, only to be disap. pointed like many a weary traveller before them. Water in most of these lakes is so highly impregnated with salt as to be impossible to drink. Dying from thirst, and unable to seek further water, the discovery of this lake must have wrecked all their hopes. The blood of the kangaroo, may. be, provided them with relief for one day, then the prospect of a slow and awful death by thirst probably became too much for them.

So it seemed they agreed to die together. Guns under chins they faced one another in grim silence and pulled the triggers to find solace in a merciful death. They added another to the long list of tragedies that have followed man's battle with the vast interior of Australia.