EXTRAORDINARY RESCUE.

Colonist, Volume XXVIII, Issue 4174, 25 June 1885, Page 4

EXTRAORDINARY RESCUE.

; LOST CHILD. The rescue of the little girl, who was lost for three weeks in, the bush in Gippsland, Victoria, has created considerable sensation in Australia. The special reporter of the 'Argus' gives the" following narrative : — It was yn the 20th day after the girl left Mrs Haines' house that a couple, of friends started out to look for a horse which bud strayed in the ranges^ Mr J. G. Curwan, a farmer and contractor, of Warburton, who has been fourteen years in the district, and knows his vvay about, was accompanied in this quest by Mr William Smith, who was on a tour through the district. The> struck the Cockatoo Creek, and as they watched the turbid stream flowing through the oozy bed of a large morass, Mr Curwan began to expatiate upon the advantages, of canals for drainage purposes with as much fervour as the late Mr.-.Hugh McColl used to praise canals for irrigation purposes. The friends grew so interested in the subject that they got off their horses to discuss it. Then, remounting and skirting the swamp, they were riding rapidly away, when Mr Smith found the head °* ■ A STARVED DOMESTIC CAT, which had vainly sought succour in a hole in a tree. Mr Curwan obliged his "town chum," as he.: calls him, by waiting till Mr Smith once more left his saddle, and with a stick fully disentombed the feline victim of misplaced confidence in the nutritive resources of the Lilydale bush, He was just mounting again, when a low sound, like a young blackbird's whistle, caught the acute ear of the experienced bushman by his side. "Hish, 1 said Mr Curwan' "What that?" Again, the wailing plaintive note was born softly on the breeze. It was enough this time. Mr Curwan was sure it was a^coo-e-e. " I never," he says, " hear^a coo-e-e twice in the bush without answering it. I answered it, and the soft weak voice came to us again, just a. little louder. I was sure something was wrong, but I could not say where the sound came from, because of the echo of the hills. I galloped up the rise in front of us, and coo-e-ed now and again. Every time we coo-e-ed—indeed oftener—we got tbe response of that low yet ■ NOTE OP DISTRESS. When we got on to the hill I was sure the voice came from where we had left. As fast as logs, bushes, and ravines would let us, we advanced towards the spot where we had been talking about canals. I heard some one speaking, but could not make out the words, and the scrub was so thick I could not see any one. At last. I caughtl sight of a little girl, and it went to my heart to see her so thin and woe-begone, but I could not be lieve it,was,Clara Crosby, or that she could have lived so long. The little creature was tottering towards us in her ulster, without shoes or stockings on,-but quite sensible. She said, 'I want to go home to my mother. I have been lost three weoks.' She'was so weak that v. SHE COULD SCARCELY STAND. I jumped-off my horse, put my coat rotnd her, and took her up in my arms:. She said she wanted a drink, but 1 wished to hasten back to the camp with her, as I was afraid she might go off. She said she lived in a tree, and used to go for water, but that she had been too weak to go for any for twp days, and I could quite believe it. Mr Smith went to bring some .tea. and, although he can't ride, I never saw a man go across country in better style as if there was no such thing as breaking, his neck in such a tangle. He met me half way, but I had'given the little thing a drink out of my hat before that. Didn't she lap it up eagerly, and then talked all the more about how she wandered away and crossed the creek and found the hollow tree, and got too frightened and too tired to travel any more. We gave her-some tea and toast, and when we got to the camp the cook said he saw a man who was lost in New Zealand, and the doctor gave him oatmeal-with some brandy in it, But Clara' smelt some pork and potatoes, and.;she did beg hard for some of that dinner. I believe she thinks me hard to this day. After : .SHE HAD EATEN A LITTLE, and now that she felt quite safe and the excitement was over,; she began to look worse than when we first found her^. -, We could see the ravages which hunger and exposure had made, but, considering what she had gone through, she wasjwonderfully chirpy. She kept asking .to be taken toher mother^ She was taken there in the: blankets of six of the boys, for every, man wanted to have a share in wrapping her up, an d then she was washed and put to* bed by Mrs'Claxton at the hotel, which was nefre^ Jb^£e£^ ,

lias been improving ever since. I don't think she would have lasted another night, as she had got too weak to go to the creek for the water on Which she had lived. How she lived, God knows. I have seen men used to hardship knock under in a fourth of the time. And then think of the loneliness and the wildness of the place where she was found. It was enough to drive a child like her mad. She's a living wonder." On the way to the scene of the extraordinary preservation of the girl, I called in to seeher mother, who is the housekeeper of a farmer named Bobert Leech, a hale man of fully sixty years of age. In the strong attachment and the keenly humane feeling -he showed towards his foster child, he strongly reminded me of the father of little Emily in " David Copperfield." He remarked: -She's a WONDERFUL KNOWLEDGEABLE GIRL, and wiry and strong. She was changed a good deal when I saw her after she was found. She was all pinched away, her face had all the blood gone, and her eyes were the biggest part of her, But she knowed me from the first. When I goes into the ■ room her eye lit up bright like, she rose her head, and then her feelin's was too much for her, and she fell over into a faint. But she soon comes to, and tells me how she put her stays down in the tree to lie on, and her petticoat up at the opening, and her beaver hat made a pillow, and at the same time kept her from ketch'ing a cold in her head. She was saved because she kept still, and did not ramble about and get more hungry and tired. I know she would stay in one place, for she is frightened to go outside the door at night. She is a praying kind of child, and at first she used to sing the hymns the Salvation Army taught her."