AUSTRALIAN DESERT.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 16304, 3 December 1918, Page 7

AUSTRALIAN DESERT.

BLACK TRACKER’S FEAT. The remarkable feat of tracking accomplished by Alfy Bates, a 17-year-old half-caste youth, was responsible for saving the life of Mr. H. Jackson, of Yandama Station (says a Sydney paper). Mr. Jackson was lost 50 miles from a habitation, among endless sandhills, weary plains, stony rises, and drycreeks, with cattle pads the only semblance of roads. Injured from a bad fall from his horse, he was dazed and semi-conscious. All sense of location and direction having gone he wandered hither and thither. Then, half-de-mented from his fall, exposure and want of food, he left his horse and struggled on foot until nature, almost exhausted, compelled him to lie down unable to struggle furtner,"

Yandama Station is a cattle station consisting of over four million acres. Jackson was employed at a musterors’ camp near Mirrabrabbie Bore, and left there on October 23 to go to the homestead, a distance of about 30 miles. He did not arrive at the homestead that night, and a man out in that direction next day did not see anything of him. •

Next morning, fearing an accident. Mr. Winton, manager of Yandama, • sent Alfy Bates on horseback with a packhorse and some food to find Jackson’s tracks and follow' them until he „found Jackson. Ho also arranged for :Mr. Austin Clnne with his motor-car. and Sergeant Lumley, of Tibooburra police, to come out and assist in the search. Alfy Bates picked up the tracks 20 miles from the homestead, leading in a wrong direction. For three days and pights he followed these tracks, camping at night on them, and starting again at dawn, first towards Kimbolton tank, thence over portion of Mount Shannon, through Yannaminta and Mount Arrowsmith hills, on towards Cooney waterhole, and then to Lake Wallace, where he found Jackson's saddle. For another 20 miles he followed Jackson’s footsteps towards Quinambye Bore, and back to Lake Wallace, eventually finding his man, almost done for, lying under a bush near Lake Wallace, on the extreme south of the Yandama holding. For over 70 miles this youth followed the tracks of the horse and the man, out of food himself for the last day, and gave unthinkingly the finest exhibition of tracking for many years over country where tracks were invisible to an ordinary mortal. To this lad of the bush the, signs were there, and unhesitatingly ho kept on, to end with thd satisfaction of knowing that ho had saved a- man’s life, and added another page to the history of the back country. After finding Jackson, Bates got his horse, managed to get Jackson into the saddle, and succeeded in getting him back a few miles to Kimbolton, where the motor-car party was met. Jackson was taken to the homestead, where, it is hoped, ho will make a complete recovery. Jackson recollects reaching Bald Hill tank, where he had dinner. On leaving there his horse fell with him. His memory from then until found by Alfy Bates is very vague, and it was apparently only the bushman’s instinct that caused him to remount his horse, retain his seat in the saddle, and stick on as long as ha could.