The Trail of the Bootless Toe – part 2

Truth – Perth – 19 January 1930, page 6

The Trail of the Bootless Toe Led on to death.

Part 1:

But Tom Traine Followed Another Trail — that Into the Golden Future (continued from part 1)

The temporary manager of Munkaderry Station, on his way to Eva Downs, noticed the trail of the ‘Bootless Toe’. Being a new chum, he did not realise its possible note of tragedy and rode on, keeping a more or less desultory look out for its owner, and finally losing it altogether.

Approaching Eva Downs, he noticed some horses a little distance off the track. Looking more closely, he notices they bore packs and decided to investigate. There under a pine tree, at his last gasp, lay— not Blake—but the Sploger. Around him, grouped like mourners at a graveside, were his horses. The Munkaderry man was just in time to save him. At Eva Downs there were only the black hands at home. Tom Traine being out in the Bundarra country, leaving the Sploger there, with the boys to attend to him, after having gleaned his story, the Munkaderry manager rode out to meet Tom Traine, and picked him up on the track. Tom and his companion followed the track to the spot when the last sign of the trail of the Bootless Toe had been lost. But the land thereabouts was light and dusty and the wind had obliterated the trail, so that after two days vain search, they had to give it up, hoping that Blake had reached one of the stations further north, realising otherwise that he was gone beyond need.

End of the Trail

Some time later, Tom was out, with one of the hands, branding some young cattle, when he sighted a flight of crows near the ground. Approaching he found a dead pack-horse. Later in the day he sent his native boy to a water hole, not distant, and the boy saw another flight of crows. Going to inspect, he found the body of a man. It was Jack Blake, fully dressed his toe protruding from his worn boot. He had perished of thirst, ‘The Trail of the Bootless Toe’ was ended. A quarter of a mile away was a waterhole. They buried the body reverently and marked the spot and Tom Traine, taking possession of the effects including a gold ring, wrote the facts to the police, as the result of which, the story got into the newspapers.

The dead Swagman by Lionel Lindsay

Tom received a pathetic and sad letter from a girl in Hillston, N.S.W, who wrote: “Can you please send me his ring.” As the ring had gone on to the police, the girl who mourned for the man who lay in the grave in virgin country, was advised accordingly. They could die very quickly, these lost pioneers, of panic and thirst. Yet some lived astonishing periods in similar circumstances.
William McLeod, referred to earlier in this story, had in his employ a cook, who took every available opportunity to prospect for gold with his little tin dish. One day, he wandered further than he intended from the camp, and got lost. Parties searched for him for a week and then gave him up as lost.

Black Fella Knowledge

A year later, Tom Traine, accompanied by his stock hand, went out to look for a new track, a water route to Barraloola and came across the skeletons of a mob of cattle, They had apparently reached the water hole in the rainy season, had lingered by until it dried up, and they perished. “White fellow die too” said the boy looking at the skeletons. “Where?” asked Tom looking around amongst the cattle bones. The boy waved his hand towards the distance mysteriously. “White fellow die too” he repeated. Tom Traine had learned never to discount the black man’s prescience or knowledge, although much of it was mysterious to him, and remains so to this day. Often a black man would make a discovery and a year later, mention it. Some incident — such as the sight of these cattle skeletons— would cause memory to recur and he would speak. But why he did not speak before, nobody could tell.

Having found the new track, Tom decided to investigate the boy’s theory of a white man’s death. After a search, he found, true enough, a human skeleton in the mulga scrub, and in a hole in a tree close by, a revolver. Alongside the skeleton was a rim of a prospecting dish, the bottom had rusted away. It was the skeleton of McLeod’s missing cook and from the locality in which the skeleton was found, the cook had travelled hundreds of miles, and lived many months, before death overtook him. He had used the prospecting dish as a drinking vessel. He had obviously discovered his whereabouts and was making a direct line back to Queensland and civilisation. They buried his bones and marked the spot. There are many marked spots all over that far north where pioneers have ventured and never come back. Mates, or passing strangers buried what was left of them.

The Great Blow

For seven years the Traine brothers had thrived, and their company had prospered. On Eva Downs, when the blow came it was harsh. Self preservation is the first law of nature, with governments as with individuals. The tick became so bad amongst horses and cattle on the coast that, the Queensland government put restrictions on cattle travelling from the infested areas into Queensland. The South Australian Government followed suit. The Tablelands with hundreds of fat bullocks, going 1,000 lbs and over, suddenly found itself without a market. Ruin had descended in a night.
Alex and Tom Traine urged upon their company to stock the country with sheep. There are millions of acres of the best sheep country in Australia up there, but with wool down to sixpence a pound, and no market for the carcasses, the company could not picture the balance sheet, and would not build for the future alone. So, after seven years of pioneering toil, Alex and Tom decided to give it up. Alex and his bride went back to Queensland civilisation, and Tom too, turned his eyes to the East.

Call of Destiny

But the East was not for him. Destiny was beckoning him, though he could not see it. The Golden West was to claim him as her own. At that time Foster and Stretch had a mob of cattle at Normanton in Queensland. The country was dry ahead, they were halted, waiting for him, Tom Traine. Crossing the Tableland, Tom saw smoke ahead, and walking towards him a stranger. “Are you Tom Traine?” asked the stranger. “Yes” agreed Tom. “I’m told that anybody can put me across to Victoria River, it is you,” said Stretch: “Will you do it?” Tom didn’t want to go West, but after consideration, he agreed. He found a track ‘water’ in a roundabout way right through to Newcastle Waters. Then he went back, put the cattle across the Barkley Tablelands, thence to Newcastle Waters and thence on to the Victoria River watershed, where Foster and Stretch founded the now famous Sturts Creek Station. That done, Tom once more turned his face to the East—to catch a boat at McArthur River—but again destiny beckoned him, and again she pointed him back to the Golden West. A firm named Percy and Scrutton had gone bankrupt, and their principal creditors, McCleod, Hunt and Co, had, he learned, appointed him liquidator.

It was a poser, still, having no fixed plans, Tom decided to fall in with the call and take the whole plant—some 150 horses, waggons and stock, across to Western Australia for sale. It was to be quite a temporary stay on Tom’s part, but while man supposes he directs his life and governs his actions, his existence and movements are irresistibly under the control of destiny.

Robinson Crusoe

How destiny called Tom Traine to the Golden West and how the golden needs of Marble Bar and Pilbara made him the “Robinson Crusoe” of the portless coast, is another story. Still Tom will speak of “only the pleasantest recollections.”

Of such stuff are the pioneers made.

End Note: Tom Traine lived a further 12 years after this story was told and died on the 25th February 1942 aged 85yrs, he is buried in the Karrakatta Cemetery in Perth WA.