There was a rumour, never authenticated, that after he had proceeded nearly one hundred miles he sent back a man with a report that he had passed through some splendid pastoral land, but this is not at all likely to be true.

The first indication of him is then met with on the Barcoo (Victoria) whereon A.C.
Gregory, in charge of the Leichhardt Search Expedition, in 1858, found his marked tree and other indications:-- "Continuing our route along the river (latitude 24 degrees 35 minutes; longitude 36 degrees 6 minutes), we discovered a Moreton Bay ash, about two feet in diameter, marked with the letter L on the east side, cut through the bark about four feet from the ground, and near it the stumps of some small trees that had been cut with a sharp axe, also a deep notch cut in the side of a sloping tree, apparently to support the ridge-pole of a tent, or some similar purpose; all indicating that a camp had been established here by Leichhardt's party.

No traces of stock could be found; this however is easily accounted for, as the country had been inundated last season." There can be little doubt about the authenticity of the trace, and it at once does away with the truth of the stories told to Hovenden Hely by the blacks as to Leichhardt's murder on the Warrego River.

Gregory then went up the Thomson River but found no other mark, and returning followed that river and Cooper's Creek down to South Australia.

This camp of Leichhardt's is easily understood.