Traffic on this road was rare. Eight days previously it had rained, and since then no wheel or hoof or human foot had marked it. It led to the Land of Burning Water, from which reports had drifted of strange happenings. There it lay beyond the hills, shimmering with yellow opalescence beneath the sun: burning water-the mirage.

From his high elevation on the edge of the hill range, Bonaparte idly watched the moving vehicle. On the basis of its speed, as indicated by the dust cloud it raised, he guessed it to be a car, and further, he guessed it was being driven by Sergeant Errey, as he was aware that the senior police officer stationed at Shaw’s Lagoon was visiting McPherson’s Station.

When the vehicle was hidden by the hills its progress still could be traced by the dust raised by its wheels, and presently it again appeared rounding a hillside, an ant running along an ant road. Calmly, and without haste, Bonaparte moved his body, brought the swag round to lie across his legs, and then began to remove the straps. It was certainly a car and the odds were in favour of its being driven by Sergeant Errey, for whom Bonaparte had a letter signed by the Chief Commissioner of the South Australian Police Department.

He had removed one strap, and his long fingers were engaged with the other, when with singular abruptness there burst into the silence about the camp the roar of an aeroplane engine.

Immediately following the arrival ofthis sound two crows, cawing in fear, almost fell into the branches of the cabbage-trees. Hidden from the man seated on the ground, they proceeded to vent their defiance on the plane, which passed over the camp, thence to follow the road to Shaw’s Lagoon.