Pushing on ahead of his party, Austin reached the Murchison twenty-five miles south-west of his former course, but the river was the same, or worse, tantalising him with pools of salt water. A desperate search was made to the southward, during a day of fierce and terrible heat, and when in utter despair they, on the second day, made for some small hills that they sighted, providentially, they found both water and grass. The whole of the party were then moved to this spot, which out of gratitude was named Mount Welcome. Nothing daunted by the sufferings he had undergone, Austin now made another attempt to reach Shark's Bay. On their way to the Murchison they captured an old native, and took him with them to point out the watering places of the blacks. At first he was able to show them one or two that they would probably have missed, but after they had crossed the Murchison and got some distance to the westward, the watering places the native had relied on were found to be dry, and it was only after the most acute sufferings from thirst, and the loss of some more horses, that they managed to straggle back to Mount Welcome. Austin's conduct during these terrible marches seems to have approached the heroic. When his companions fell off one by one and laid down to die, and the native inhabitant of the wilds was cowering weeping under a bush, he managed to reach the little well that the blackfellow had formerly shown them, and without resting, tramped back with water to revive his exhausted comrades. Arrived at Mount Welcome, they found the water there on the point of giving out, and weak as they all were, an instant start had to be made for the Geraldine mine, where a small settlement had been formed to work the galena lode discovered by Gregory. The prospect before them was most discouraging; to the mine the distance was one hundred and sixty miles, and to the highest point on the Murchison, where Gregory had found water, which would be their first stage, was ninety miles, but it had to be done. They started at midnight, and by means of forced marches, travelling day and night, reached Gregory's old camp on the river; having fortunately found a small supply of water at one place on the way. From this point they followed the river down, obtaining water from springs in the banks, and on the 20th November arrived at the mine, where they were warmly entertained. From thence they returned, some by sea and some by land, to Perth. Austin's exploration had led to no profitable result. The large lake (Moore), that had so hampered Gregory, was found to be an arm or outlet of the still larger Cow-cowing, and that was about all. The upper Murchison had not turned out at all well, and the whole summary of the journal amounts to repetitions of daily struggles with a barren and waterless district, under the fiery sun of the southern summer.