He reached the Victoria depot safely, as before related, and reported his
discovery, having had two more skirmishes with the natives on the way.
Fresh provisioned, he made back for the Flinders, but found it impossible
to follow the tracks. From what he saw, however, he formed a theory that
Burke had retreated towards Queensland, and there he made up his mind to
return. He regained his former course on the river he calls the Norman,
but which may have been the Saxby, and up this river he toiled till he
reached the network of watersheds which forms such a jumble of broken
country at the heads of the Burdekin, Lynd, Gilbert and Flinders.

Here Walker's horses suffered severely from the rocks and stones, until
at last, by the time they had reached the Lower Burdekin, they were
well-nigh horseless, and quite starving. On the 4th of April, 1862, they
reached Strathalbyn cattle station, owned by Messrs. Wood and Robison,
not far from where M'Kinlay eventually arrived.

M'Kinlay's was the last party to use the roundabout and rugged road to
the head of the Burdekin that seemed to have such attractions for all the
explorers. Henceforth the road to the Gulf lay down the wide plains of
the Flinders.

Walker was afterwards employed by the Queensland Government to explore a
track for the telegraph line from Rockingham Bay to the mouth of the
Norman River, in the Gulf of Carpentaria. This he carried out
successfully; but when at the Gulf he was attacked by the then prevalent
malarial fever, and died there.

This completes the series of expeditions undertaken for the relief of
Burke and Wills. The eastern half of Australia was now nearly all
known--from south to north, and from north to south, it had been crossed