They crossed the river, but beyond it all their efforts to penetrate westward were in vain.

They had fought their way to within one hundred miles of Shark's Bay, but they had then been so long without water that further advance meant certain death.

Even during the retreat to the Murchison, the lives of the horses were saved only by the accidental discovery of a small native well in a most improbable situation, namely, in the middle of a bare ironstone plain.

Their only course now was to fall back on the Murchison, hoping that they would find water at their crossing.

Austin pushed on ahead of the main body, and struck the river twenty-five miles below their previous crossing, to make the tantalising discovery that the pools of water on which they had fixed their hopes were hopelessly salt.
A desperate and vain search was made to the southward, during a day of fierce and terrible heat; but on the next day, having made for some small hills they had sighted, they providentially found both water and grass.
The whole party rested at this spot, which was gratefully named Mount Welcome.
Nothing daunted by the sufferings he had undergone, Austin now made another attempt to reach Shark's Bay.