Caleb dismounted from the hired horse with a grunt, stretching his damaged leg. The muscles screamed in protest. Even without the injury, it had been months since he had ridden a horse. But for all the discomfort, he had enjoyed the ride. Penrose had acted as a tour guide, knowing that this was Caleb’s first excursion into the Australian bush. At their approach, bright-coloured parrots rose, screeching, and a wallaby bounded across the track, pausing momentarily to inspect the men, its eyes bright with curiosity and its soft ears flicking. Caleb had seen drawings of these animals but his delight in seeing the little animal was quelled when Penrose told him that wallabies and kangaroos were the best eating to be found when supplies ran low.

The raw settlement of Pretty Sally consisted of a motley collection of bark huts and tents that clung precariously to a narrow stretch of flat ground on a high ridge. One shanty proclaimed itself to be the General Store with a handpainted sign that hung crookedly above the door.

‘Why is it called Pretty Sally?’ Caleb asked as they rode through the town.

Unlike the tall mountain gums and the rich tree ferns of the green gullies, up here the trees were sparse and the undergrowth dried out by the hot summer. Pretty Sally had little to commend it except scrub and rocks.

‘I think the name is ironic,’ Penrose said.

He would never have found Hannigan’s claim without Penrose, who had in his possession a recent survey map. With little more than the description on the claim documents and the map, they passed through the settlement and continued along the ridge, turning off along a faint but discernible track, which ended in a small clearing. Caleb secured his horse’s reins to a fallen tree, allowing the beast enough room to graze the scraggly grass. While Penrose, head down, scoured the edges of the clearing, Caleb slapped ineffectually at the flies that buzzed around his head and clung to his shirt.

‘What are you looking for?’ he asked.

‘Claim markers,’ Penrose replied. ‘Ah, there it is. See that peg?’

Caleb limped over to the wooden peg that had been hammered into the ground. A piece of tin had been affixed to it, on which ‘Hannigan 19/10/71’ was written in a rough hand in black paint.

‘He would have put pegs in the four corners of the claim,’ Penrose said.

He let Penrose pace out the distance, scrabbling over the steep sides of the gully, his feet slipping on loose rocks.

Breathless and sweating, Penrose confirmed he had found the second peg. He waved a hand down the slope. ‘Looks like it goes in this direction. There’s a path here,’ he said. ‘You go first.’