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DIED OF
THIRST
Woman's
Terrible Ordeal v
TRACKERS'
FINE WORK
SYDNEY, Monday. v /
Before she died from thirst . anu ?
exhaustion in spinifex country near
Balranald Mrs. Annie .Crawford
(71), who had wandered around aim
lessly for nearly a week, suffered ter
rible -privations. She had chewed
leaves in an effort to keep herself
alive, and had cut her feet and fing
ers digging into the ground in her
frenzy. ? ' . . . ' . '. ..
Behind the search is an amazing/story
of the skill and tenacity of five black
trackers who assisted Constables; Pickup
and Smith. With Jaskie Shields,'. their
55-year-old leader, as their head, they
found tracks which were not visible to
white men, even after they had been
pointed out, and followed them' for 35
miles. - ?
The tracks led them to her billycan,
which she had carried full of tea when '
she left home for Balranald last Sun
day, and later they' found chewed up
malice leaves, which she had sucked hop- A
ing to secure enough juice to keep her- 1KL
self alive. ^g
Eleven miles from her hoine at Little i-m
Nurgha, tracks on Friday suggested, that r
she was still living, but at nightfall they
had not found her. Two aborigines, An
gus Myers and Jimmie Moore, with their
chief and two other blackfellows, picked
up the trail at noon on Saturday. Eighty
yards farther on they found Mrs. Craw
ford lying dead among the spinifex. She t
had died about 26 hours earlier. -
She had discarded her shoes because,
her feet were so swollen that she could
not wear them. Her lips were swollen
and burst.
She had been without food and water
for days, and in her delirium had gath
ered up pieces of wood1 and left- them
stacked together as if she had intended
to light a fire, but she had no matches.
$