OUTBACK TRAGEDY
TWO SKELETONS FOUND

What is believed to be a tragedy, involving the deaths of two prospectors, was revealed in a discovery made by Hughie King near Cue on November 26. According to a report received from that centre late yesterday, Hughie King, who is employed on Austin Downs Station, near Day Dawn, was out fox hunting, and when on the Wandarrie run, about 10 miles east of the Mainland, came upon two skeletons, which, upon a subsequent examination by Dr Cashmore, were stated to be the remains of two big-bodied men. When found, one skeleton had a magnifying glass, a penny dated 1877, a threepenny piece dated 1890, and the remains of a water bag alongside it, while alongside the second skeleton was a pipe, a Waterbury watch, and a magnifying glass with initials C.D.H. scratched on the cover. It is surmised that the men died from thirst while out prospecting.

 

In a newspaper article in March 1900, Christian appeared as a witness in the Supreme Court in Perth concerning a civil case, Monte Christo GM v Commissioner of Railways. In this article, he is described as an Alluvial Miner of Norwood, South Australia, formerly of Kalgoorlie. It said he was working with his brother at the time, which could be either Carl, Johann, or Henry Heitmann.

So even with advantages such as the internet, TROVE, and Ancestry.com in the intervening 33 years since first receiving this inquiry, I have still not been able to add very much to Daniel’s story. I would think it quite possible he was one of the remains found of the two men near Cue, but it looks like we may never know. I doubt that Bertha ever saw her wayward husband again after he left for Western Australia with her mother’s money.

It was not ‘Happy Christmas Hogan’s’ fault that he was born on the natal day of the Prince of Christianity. He certainly had had no voice in the matter which, it was apparent to him later, if not to his godfathers and godmothers in his baptism, was altogether out of proportion to his prospects and surroundings. But he staggered on under the burden of this inauspicious name, and padded along life’s highway barefooted, until, at seventeen years of age, he awakened to the fact that ten shillings a week — was not sufficient for a young man who hoped, one day, to run a stable of his own, and employ labour at a high rate.

Happy, who was generally known as ‘Tommy’ in the stables, and it was under that name, and by that style and title, that he had successfully won his way into the good graces of pretty Mary Kelly, the little nurse girl who attended to the requirements of the juveniles of his employer’s family. Mary, however, was his own age. At seventeen years, a girl is more of an adult than is a male of the species. It broke Tommy up altogether to find that Mary had a considerable weakness for a big policeman. Tommy was a thoughtful lad, and when not and when not pondering on the folly of his name, he often wondered, in a dreamily speculative way, why he had been born, and whether under different circumstances he might not have been more in touch with the people of the gilded world whose inhabitants were among the patrons of the stable.

Mary was largely mixed up in these fancies of his half-tutored mind, and he thought, at considerable length, how he could establish himself firmly in her affections — how, in fact, he could attain to the dignity of ‘Mr Hogan’ and pass out of the ‘Tommy’ stage for good and all.  Early in 1893 the Eastern Colonies were startled out of the sloth engendered by a long period of depression by the news that the West was rich in gold, and that men tramping the dry and dusty track to the fields were stubbing their toes on giant nuggets, that the precious metal was being unearthed in bucketsful, and that men who, in the cities of Victoria and New South Wales, could not get credit for a glass of beer, were washing their feet in champagne at 25/- a small bottle.

Tommy did not believe all this verbatim, but he took enough of it in to satisfy him that there was something in the reports, and after long and serious communion with himself, he decided to draw his few pounds from the Savings Bank and start out to try his luck. A brief interview with Mary preceded his departure, and they solemnly bargained that, if he returned rich within a few years, she would marry him, and he would buy the stable, get in a few good horses, and eventually blossom into a sport, whose colours might one day be the first past the post in a Derby or Cup — perhaps a Derby and Cup, for, as Tommy explained, that was within the region of possibility, inasmuch as he meant to buy only the best of stock and race on the dead square.

Next day he was on the water, and a month afterwards, on Christmas Day, trod the streets of Fremantle for the first time. And as he walked towards the railway station, thinking on his chances, he saw lying on the path before him. and right in the way of pedestrians. a sovereign. He swooped down on it like a sparrow hawk on a chicken, and after testing it with his teeth, dropped it into his pocket chuckling.

“Gold, first time, Christmas Find”

By gee! that’s what I’ll call it —when I find it. I’m goin’ to find something good, afore I go back. I wish’t I could get a tip where to go first. But I must get to Coolgardie, anyhow — that’s where the stuff is. Like all Easterners, Tommy regarded this centre as the Alpha, if not also the Omega, of the gold-hunter’s wanderings, and that night, as he lay down to sleep in a shed at the back of the Freemason’s Hotel, ‘Coolgardie’ was the last word he muttered before he slipped into dreamland, and there he dreamt of an awful spectacle. He dreamt –

By the edge of what had been a soak, but was now sand baking in the burning air, lay a corpse — in no way repulsive, for decay had been arrested, and the remains preserved by the dry process of natures mummifying of the dead in the glare of the sun and the heat of the sand. One bony hand, over which the tightened skin was drawn hard and smooth, pointed to the north — the other, half-buried, lay clenched in the sand. Tommy was in no way shocked. It was an uncommon sight, and he was in a strange country, yet it did not seem strange nor out of place, nor too was he at all surprised when the corpse sat up and spoke.

‘Wots your name?’ asked the corpse, ‘Happy Christmas Hogan,’ he replied

was the reply. ‘Wots yours?’ ‘Oh, I ain’t got one now. I’m a corpse— a deceased — a late lamented.’ And he laughed hollowly, ‘Been dead long?’ asked Tommy. ‘Yes, six months or so,’ ‘Can’t yon take anything for it’ ‘Eh !’ howled the remains. ‘I mean — well, I don’t mean that— say, what’s it like being dead?’ queried the living man. ‘All right — w’en you get used to it. But what are you after?’ ‘Gold,’ was the prompt reply. ‘Right. I’ll show you where’s there’s plenty of it And I’ll tell you how to get it.’ ‘Good enough,’ commented Tommy. ‘On one condition,’ continued the remains. ‘Wot’s that?’ ‘You’ll have to take me back to Sydney and bury me decently. And once a year you’ll have to come and sit and smoke a pipe at midnight on my grave.’ ‘That’s a pretty tough contract, ain’t it ?’ asked Tommy. ‘No, it ain’t much,’ said the prospector. ‘I’ll do it, only thing I be against it is if the police catch me prowling about the cemetery at that time of night, they’ll run me in.’

‘Tell you what,’ said the corpse, ‘I’ll come and spend the evening with you.’ ‘No, I’m dammed if you will,’ was the energetic response, as thoughts of Mary came into his mind. ‘Don’t want any bloomin ghosts comin round.’ ‘Well, will you put up a headstone and keep a grave in order, and plant a flower on it now and again, and cover me over here?’ ‘Yes, I’ll do that much.’ ‘It’s a wager, Shake hands.’ And so the bargain was made. ‘I’ve never been to the place where this here gold is,’ said the deceased, ‘but I can direct you.’ ‘Look here,’ said Tommy, ‘I don’t want no wild-goose chase. And I ain’t goin’ trampin about the country to please any d#%*d defunct!  –  If you’re goin’ to show me where it is you’ll have to tell me how you know.’ ‘Right,’ said the remains, ‘that’s fair. Well, I’ll tell you.

My mate and me had bin in this country a year. We separated to look for water, but I pegged out first. He found a big, rich reef eighteen miles from here.’ ‘But how do you know?’ naturally enquired Tommy. ‘Oh, ‘cos he told me. He came here after he also pegged out and told me. Now, I know the place is eighteen miles from there, the way I’m pointing’. But before you find it you got to find him. He made me promise I’d tell the first chap I saw, and you’re the first, so I’m tellin’ you.’ ‘But where is he?’ ‘I don’t know. He never told me. But it’s between here and the gold. An’ you’ve got to undo his swag an you’ll find his blanket torn where he took pieces to blaze his track after he found it. If you follow ‘the blaze you’ll find the reef, thats all I know.’ And, giving himself a shake, the remains fell to pieces — and Billy woke up in Fremantle!

Two years later of knocking about with varying luck, and not much of that, had driven a good deal of the romance out of Tommy’s system, and he had forgotten the dream and treasured only a hazy remembrance of pretty Mary Kelly, whom he scarcely hoped to see again. He had, by stages, battled along to Mount Margaret, and was prospecting in the vicinity of a reported rich find, in a streak of dry and hungry looking country, which, as far as appearance bore testimony, had not felt a rainfall since the Creation, and had never been trodden by the foot of man. But Tommy did not mind the desolation. He had food and water in his bags, and was not far from supplies. His attention was attracted by a greenish patch a little distance out of his course, and, riding up to it, he found a very small soak, by the side of which lay a body— it was the defunct of his dream — in the same position as he had seen it on his first night in Fremantle.

The whole situation flashed back to his memory, and Tommy stood, with his head bared, waiting for the corpse to open the conversation. But the remains preserved a cold, sarcastic silence. One stiffened arm pointed to the north, the other hand was buried in the sand. Near by lay a pick, but no swag, and Tommy, half dreading, yet hopeful that the dead man might speak, muttered:

‘Poor beggar ! There must have been two of ’em,’ ‘Where’s the other one?

he asked, his eyes resting on the outstretched arm of the figure at his feet. ‘By gee I’ll take his tip. Eighteen miles north from here?  Well, I can do that lot tomorrow, and anyhow, it’s worth trying. I might find the other chap. It’s funny, anyway. Queerest go I ever heard of. Like a yarn out of a book. Only this is true and they ain’t’. After burying the body, Tommy laid down his blankets and slept without any further visitations, and bright and early in the morning started on a journey of discovery which he irreverently described as

‘a blanky wild-goose chase.’

However, he kept on his course over as barren a piece of country as any man hates to travel, keeping a bearing north, by the sun. Noon had passed, and as he had made an early start, so calculated he had covered the distance, but had met with no sign of the second remains. ‘I’ll go on for another hour,’ he said to himself, ‘and if I don’t come up with him, I’ll give up’. The thought had scarcely been framed in his mind when his brumby shied and nearly threw him out of the saddle. A piece of blue blanket, weighted with a stone, had fluttered almost at his feet Tommy almost jumped out of the saddle, and, picking up the ‘blaze’, ran it back to where a body was lying, and it may not be to his discredit to say that he immediately caught his pony and ran the track the other way a mile, to the foot of a low ridge, and there he saw evident traces of hasty pottering work on a big outcrop. Five minutes with the butt of his pick on the cap of the reef satisfied him, and Tommy’s overwrought feelings found vent in a yell which might have been heard a mile away, had there been anyone to hear it.

So the ‘Christmas Find’ was discovered. How it was sold, and what he got for it, it is not the business of this veracious chronicler to set out. One thing may be mentioned. He went back to Sydney within the three years, to find Mary Kelly married to the large policeman, and when he started to upbraid her for lack of fidelity, her better half knocked him down with a club, and promptly ran him into the watch-house on a charge of riotous conduct and obscene language, for which, next morning, he was fined 40 shillings. That ended his romance, and he employed the remaining few months of his life, and the balance of his money, between the racecourse and the cemetery, in which latter, according to his contract, he erected a tombstone, without an inscription, to the memory of the defunct prospector.

On his way home from Rosehill, after a day’s racing, he collided with a tram going at a high rate of speed, and such of his remains as could be swept up were placed in a bag, and after being sat upon at the morgue, were buried in the pauper lot in Rookwood graveyard. Probably ‘Happy Christmas Hogan’ has met the other ghosts ere this, and set out the exact position of affairs, but no reliable information on the point is to hand …..

Carr-Boyd is one of the best beloved —and most maligned men in Australia. He wrote prolifically for the Queensland papers under the pen name of ‘Potjostler’,  and was known to his close friend by the nickname of ‘Pot’. He was more than six feet in height, raw-boned, with large hands and feet. His powerful and once active frame has been broken by exposure, fatigue and hunger. A belted tweed suit clothes his great, gaunt figure, and an old brown sun helmet is set on his head and throws a shadow over his face. His is a fierce, soldierly face that will stick in your memory— keen brown eyes, heavy eyebrows, a big hawk-nose, and a sweep of white, drooping moustache against skin that has been permanently tanned to a coppery hue by tropical and semi-tropical suns. Yet for all the fierce cast of the face, the general effect is quietly humorous and good-natured. And this is the man who, by exploring and opening up the so-called deserts of Western Australia, made the whole Commonwealth indebted to him. and who, by his whimsical, romantic stories of his experiences, has entertained many.

He states that since, the age of ten years of age he has made eighteen expeditions into the bush country of Western Australia – country which before his coming was given over to silence, snakes, and kangaroos. He has proved by the explorations that the Great Victorian Desert for an age supposed to be a waste, is a farmers paradise when properly developed. He has done the same for the Great Sturt, the Eyre, the Gibson, and the Gregory Deserts. And because of his efforts these places are today covered in part with grassing herds and flocks.

It was Carr-Boyd also who first discovered gold in the Kimberley. He was also among the first fifty men to arrive at Coolgardie in Western Australia after Bayley and Ford had pegged their reward claim in that centre. He has been through North-West Queensland and the Northern Territory of South Australia. He has explored the Cambridge Gulf and Kimberley districts, and portions of the Victoria River. He states he floated the first Australian gold mine. He has travelled 1300 miles over country through which no white man ever before passed, between Kalgoorlie and Wareena (SA). He has been left for dead a number of times, has suffered hunger and heat, has been captured by natives, who pierced the cartilage of his nose and forced him to wear an emu bone in the hole. And for all these feats and for the romance which attaches to them

this Australian Buffalo Bill

has become one of the best loved men in his own country. He has but one failing— a whimsical sense of humour. And, because of this humour, which often gets the upper hand of his judgment, he has been maligned, derided, scoffed at and lampooned. And small wonder, in a fine deep voice, with very becoming eloquent gestures, he will spin a yarn wildly fantastic, not so much to thrill his audience as to indulge his fancy for the bizarre and to shock. ‘I have been accused, he says, of being everything from a cannibal to a Tasmanian Devil. I am neither, my parents were poor, Irish.’

‘You need never talk to me of hardships.’ he would  say. ‘When I was in the Cambridge Gulf region I had to bait my hooks with pieces of my own leg. My calf to-day is corrugated like a piece of iron roofing. And I have been near death a thousand times, but never nearer than when I had a party of English Jackaroos under my wing near Mount Burgess (WA) where I told them they were in the tropics. They asked ‘Suppose that you should be bitten by a snake and die? How should we find our way back to Coolgardie?’ ”Easy’ said I, ‘On my chest I have tattooed a map of the region, and if I die, skin me and use the pelt as a map.’ ‘Now if you’ll believe me, I caught, one of those wretches trying to poison me in order to get the locality of the rich gold mine I had marked out near my armpit’. Carr-Boyd did not smile when he told me this, and I was, and still am, in doubt whether he meant it to be taken seriously.

He amused himself during the ensuing silence by passing a match stick through the hole in his nose. ‘I got this.’ said he. ‘from the natives during one of my expeditions in the so-called deserts of Western Australia. I had been suffering from thirst fever, and when I had found water I attempted to travel by day before my strength had fully returned. I was knocked over by the sun, and the next thing I remember is waking up in a pool of water, with a veritable Venus blowing the cold liquid over me with her mouth. When I recovered it was necessary that I join the tribe or else, so I had my nose pierced, and wore an emu bone through the hole by way of an ornament. But I got even with them, I watched my chance and bolted.’

Family History:

William Henry James CARR-BOYD was born at sea on the 27th February 1852, the second son of Irish parents, Dr William James Henry Carr-Boyd Esq and Charlotte Marianne nee McAvoy. He had five sisters and three brothers all born in Australia except for Anne, David and Louisa who were born in Ireland. The family first settled in Tasmania where his father became the Classics master at the Hobart High School before opening a private school in Campbeltown TAS. In 1863 the family moved to Queensland where his father became Crown Commissioner of Lands for Queensland and later a journalist and inspector of schools.

On the 26th September 1882 at the age of 30yrs, William married Emily Harriett ‘Minnie’ Nicholas in Victoria. She had been married previously to Charles Deakin and she married under this surname. Also, in the marriage records William is recorded as William James Henry Carr BOYD. I’m sure this often happened with hyphenated surnames.
Emily appears to have stayed in Victoria and didn’t accompany her husband on any of his adventures both in Australia and overseas. The couple were to have four children all born in Victoria.

Reginald William Carr-Boyd born 1883
Wanda Koota Carr-Boyd born 1885
Bertha Winnie Carr-Boyd born 1887
Violet Mascotte Carr-Boyd born 1888

Just prior to his death William said that he wished to make one more long trek into the bush, he longed for the smell of camels and campfire smoke again and to die with his boots on. However this wasn’t to be, and he died in a private hospital in Melbourne. He is buried in Springvale Botanical Cemetery, Greater Dandenong City, Victoria. He was survived by his wife but all of his children pre deceased him.

Western Mail 28 May 1925, page 22

CARR-BOYD – EXPLORER’S DEATH
by James Thomson

News reached Perth last week of the death in a Melbourne private hospital of Carr-Boyd, aged 73yrs, known throughout Australia for more than half a century as an intrepid explorer and goldfields prospector. He was the eldest son of Dr William Carr-Boyd and whimsically declared that he owned no country as his birthplace—having been born at sea while his parents were voyaging to Tasmania in 1852.

THE SEEKER – THE LATE BILLY FROST
Prospector and Explorer
By John Meiklejohn.

Round the campfires of the various diggings during the 1890s, no name was more prominent than that of the late Billy Frost. He never had the fortune to make any sensational gold discovery, but, through his unceasing activity in making journeys into unknown country, he blazed the way for thousands of others to follow. In the opening up of a number of outside fields, he was perhaps more instrumental than any other individual after Bayley’s time.

Frost was just an ordinary untutored, bushman, inspired by curiosity to search uncharted country in the hope that golden treasure would be his reward. He did not seek glory in renown; he was simply the typical pioneer who found pleasure in the hard life he followed and the radiant ambitions he pursued.

Of Scottish parents, he was born about 1862 at sea on an immigrant sailing ship in the Bay of Biscay. He was christened William Taylor Frost The family settled in Claremont, Queensland, where his early days were spent. His father was a stern disciplinarian, who dealt harshly with the boy, so much so, that the youngster rebelled against parental authority and sought liberty and independence by deserting his home.

His first job was acting as an offsider for a Bullock Driver. Then he joined a man named Bidle, helping him to take the first cattle back to Burketown after that place had been deserted owing to a visitation of the Black Plague. It was a hard, tough school for a kiddie, but he had grit and pluck. This was proved on one occasion when thrown from a horse, he smashing his left wrist bone. One of the party bound it up, but Billy still kept his turn in watching the cattle. For a few days, he suffered agony, with teeth set in grim silence, before he launched a complaint. The men of the party met this with jeering retorts, telling him he was too damned soft for that country. In desperation, he tore off the bandage and showed a much swollen, highly discoloured arm, alive, with a moving mass of maggots. The broken flesh had been blown by flies through the bandage. It. was only then he received a little attention and recovered, but as a memento of this, he carried a slight bend in his left forearm for life.

He left the gulf country and travelled overland to the Northern Territory with cattle when the first settlers went there. The local natives were at that time extremely troublesome, often killing or wounding the settlers, cattle or horses whenever the opportunity offered. Those were stirring times for a young lad, but his fearless determined nature eminently qualified him to meet all emergencies.

Accompanied by a man called Chapman, he arrived in the Kimberley with horses in 1890 and shortly after drifted down to do his first digging in Shark’s Gully near Marble Bar in the Pilbara Region. He was fortunate enough to secure a claim there that turned out well, the largest nugget was 70 ounces. This gold was an incentive to look for more and he resolved to follow the gold prospecting life. He was early on at the Murchison but was doing no good there when Coolgardie was announced. His party was the first to get through across country. From that time he devoted himself unceasingly for several years to making countless journeys into new country in search of water and gold. Some of his achievements are marked by many of the tin tracks in use in the backcountry today.

Among his discoveries to the end of  1896 were Goongarrie in company with Jack Bennett and Harry Herbert (Pigweed Harry), finding gold at Siberia with Bob Birmer, Aleck Cellis and Aleck Nesbit finding Eucalyptus alluvial gully at Mt Margaret and the discovery of the ‘Lass O’Gowrie’ mine at Lake Darlot, with Jim Tregurtha and three others. After taking 600 ounces out of this last, they sold it for £8,000 cash to Messrs. Bewick Moreing and Co.

Then followed a trip to South Australia. There a party composed of Frost, Tregurtha and Schmidt combined to make a most remarkable journey through the untrodden country from Oodnadatta to the north of Lake Darlot. They started with eight pack camels and two riding horses. One horse became badly crippled and was abandoned in the Musgrove Ranges. The other horse after suffering a four days perish without water, was shot west of Warburton Ranges. For the remainder of the journey, the party were obliged to walk on foot.

Near the Peterman Ranges, and while the party advanced towards a water soak, a number of natives formed up in a hostile manner with uplifted spears. Quick action followed, and they were driven off. On another occasion near Mt. Aloysius, a score of armed natives surrounded them in camp. However, a few shots in the air scared them away.

When they reached Barlee Spring near the South Australian border, they looked for permanent water, as John Forrest had so reported in 1874. The hopes were dashed and they faced a long and most arduous dry stretch to Bonython Creek – a trek of over 330 miles by map measurement, which involved 16 days. During that time the camels were entirely without water. In the last 10 days of this time the three men we down to 12 gallons of water to cover all purposes. When they arrived at the water supply, a most creditable achievement considering they were walking on foot, there were still two gallons on hand.

They were unable to do any prospecting en route, as each day was a constant lookout for signs of water. They crossed the promising-looking auriferous country, as well as rich pastoral country, about the Peterman and Warburton Ranges. At Lightning Rock they found a mulga tree branded with the letter F over 73, this marking John Forrest’s seventy-third camp from Geraldton. Although the story of this trip has never previously been published, it constitutes one of the highest merits in the records of prospecting journeys.

Following this they struck overland from Darlot to Coolgardie. Here Schmidt left the party, the camels were sold, and Frost and Tregurtha shipped off to New Guinea. After a few arduous months, of doing no good and getting loaded up with malarial fever, they returned to Sydney. From here they shipped over to Dawson City, via San Francisco, taking part in the world’s most historic gold rush of 1898. The mighty Yukon River was the one feature of this country that impressed them both and made them envious that such another body of water was not coursing through the heart of

Their Own Loved Country.

They arrived back in the West late in 1898, went out north of Darlot, and got gold in Mt. Grey. They returned overland to Coolgardie, thence to Goddard’s Creek and Queen Victoria Springs, thence north to Lake Rason, after which they were forced back west to Windridge Brook for water. They found gold-bearing reefs at what was known afterwards as Burtville. They acquired two leases, the ‘Nil Desperandum’ and ‘The Wanderer’. They gave the first away, it has since returned to different parties who worked it over £100,000 worth of gold and it is still being worked. They worked the Wanderer themselves for two years, but the results were not encouraging.

In. 1902, Frost seized with a desire for more travel, parted on the best of terms with Tregurtha and shipped off to West Africa, British Guiana, Mexico and Panama. But out of all those countries, none fascinated him like Western Australia. He returned in time for the Bullfinch excitement, but he had no luck. He had been about three years away. Good finds now were rare and the majority of his old pals had gone so he packed up and left for the cattle country in the north. He was lost sight of until news reached Perth last May that he had passed over, having met his death from a rifle bullet in Queensland.

Inscription: The Prospectors Prospector, the greatest of the pioneer prospectors of Western Australia, discoverer of Siberia and other fields, activew in WA, NT, Qld, NZ, West Africa, Panama, Mexico and the Klondyke.

Writing in ‘Smith’s Weekly’, John Drayton announced the end of Frost as follows:-

“He was shot dead in a row on the Gilliatt road near Mackinlay Queensland on April 28. The story of his shooting was told in the Police Court at Cloncurry, by Michael Farley, who was in camp with Frost and his mate Mick Ford (sentenced to four years’ gaol on the charge of manslaughter). Farley had been drinking with them in the camp at the Five-mile Windmill for some days and had arranged to go with them on a prospecting trip to the Gulf country.

Ford had been given a cheque for £50 to buy supplies – and more grog – and on the question of the return of the balance he and Frost had words. Ford had the change in a £40 cheque which he refused to hand over till the next morning. Frost put up the argument that the change was his and said if it were not given up at once, he would go to the sergeant at Cloncurry.

He caught his horse and put the bridle on and was walking back to where the saddles were when Ford picked up a Winchester rifle and said. ‘If you get on that horse I’ll drop you.’ He fired as he spoke, and Frost dropped dead with the bullet in his brain.

Farley ran to where the body was lying and called Frost’s name. Ford, who had laid the rifle down, said “it’s no good calling him, I shot him in the head, and he’ll never hear you nor any other man again, I know, I did a lot of shooting when I was in France. But I’d sooner have shot myself than have harmed old Bill. ”

Had Frost been content to stay and work claims at a time when he could have got them on fields where good gold was being worked, instead of chasing the shadow in the bush for the substance at hand, he would have reaped greater gain for himself. But his imagination drove him further afield, seeking the great chunks of gold which lay in some valley forever beyond the sunset. Apparently, he died poor.

Mr James Tregurtha has kindly supplied the writer with the above particulars. He was in a position to know Frost intimately, as they were partners for over seven years. Mr Tregurtha desires to add that Frost was endowed with an unfailing determination, indomitable grit and happy optimism which qualified him to face unknown risks. He was the best of mates and staunchest of friends, as genuine as the gold he got, absolutely reliable in the worst of emergencies, totally unselfish and one of Nature’s noblemen.

He Threw a Seven

by Smiler Hayles

He came to this field amongst the first army of gold-seekers who swept inland from the sea coast, intent upon burgling the treasure chests of nature. He was only one of the rough but gallant band of pioneers who, leaving home and loved ones far behind them, faced the dangers and privations of this rock-ribbed, waterless region. His name was Murtagh Broderick, and the snows of winter had whitened the beard and bared the head of the old miner.
For many a long year he had ranged over the goldfields of Australasia, working as men of his breeding do work; joyous in his hours of good fortune, patient and persevering when he struck a streak of hard luck.

Only a private in the restless, energetic, ever-moving army of prospectors who are daily and yearly facing dangers that city men never dream of. I saw him only a few days back out at Fly Flat, delving amidst the network of abandoned claims for the narrow seams of unworked ground. Many a big nugget had been unearthed there on the ground that sloped down from Bayley’s, and as the old man worked away hardily, with his strong arms looking like whipcord and his bronzed neck bare to the kisses of wind and sun, his thoughts ran away to the humble home in sunny New South Wales, where the grey haired wife sat patiently by the cottage fireside in the evening, and as she darned the old frock thought of and prayed for the man who in his lusty manhood had taken her now withered hand in his for life’s long journey.
On Tuesday last he was working away as steadily as ever, down six or seven feet in a bit of treacherous ground in Fly Flat, he was under mining on a bit of a lead that looked like ending on pay dirt when, without a moment’s warning, down came the treacherous dirt, caving him in, choking up the strong chest, crushing the rugged life, sending the hatter’s soul out over the boundary into the unpegged country that persons call eternity.
I saw him once again, a trooper stood beside the lifeless body that lay stiff and cold in an iron hut in Coolgardie. He was dressed in his mining clothes, rough hewn and rugged, but on his honest face rested a sort of smile. Broderick had skipped his claim, drawn up his pegs, and left. He had followed his luck to the end, Murtagh had thrown a seven; and when we follow suit, hand in our checks and quit, may we be found like him, square at our post. Wednesday they planted him, out in the open, where the clear stars will shine, close to Coolgardie camp; so that the miner’s soul hanging around at times, when there’s no business on where he’s prospecting, may take a midnight stroll and hear the great hum of life rising, and rolling, and swelling-from the heart of the camp in Coolgardie.

Murty Broderick is buried in the Coolgardie Pioneer Cemetery in an unmarked grave.