"Any news?"
with that peculiar kind of negative inflection to the query that does not anticipate any affirmative reply. Forgeries have been nipped in the bud, robberies have been strangled in their birth, and assaults no one has the courage to commit, and thus the police force have a sinecure. You may remember my having mentioned in a former letter the murder of three shepherds at a lambing-down station near Mount Larcomb. Nothing has yet been learned to explain the crime for this most wanton and unprovoked attack -- for unprovoked it must have been on the part of two at least of the men who were murdered, as they had arrived at the station only a day or two prior to the outrage. The black police have ever since the news was received been on the trail of the tribe by whom the crime was committed; one of the blacks supposed to have been implicated in the murder was pursued by the police down to Fort Curtis, and being run very close, took shelter in the house of Captain O'Connell, a short distance from Gladstone. He was, however, tracked to this lair, and two of the native troopers entered the house, dragged him outside its portals, and shot him, almost on the doorstep of the Government resident. I have been given to understand that Captain O'Connell is exceedingly annoyed at such an outrage having been committed, and that he has held an inquest, or rather, was to have held one on the body the result, however, I was unable to ascertain. There are a large number of blacks now on Curtis Island, in immediate proximity to the pilot station, and as those aborigines who commit offences on the mainland and dread a visit from the black police, usually take refuge upon one or other of the islands in its vicinity, it has been hinted that possibly the Mount Larcomb murderers may be of the party. Whether or not, there being now no vessels in the bay, the pilot and his boat's crew have hardly the security of position that persons, so isolated, would think it desk able to maintain. I have been informed by a gentleman recently arrived in Rockhampton overland from Darling Downs, that on several occasions during his journey he heard of Captain Douglass, gold commissioner at the Peel River, who was travelling by order of the Government to Canoona to make a report upon the gold-fields of the Fitzroy. My informant at last met this Captain Douglass, but not recognising in him the gentleman who represents the Government at the Hanging Rock, he told his doubts to the owner of the station where the rencontre took place. The captain had applied to be famished with rations for his men, who, he said, were camped at a creek two miles away; and, with the usual liberality of the bush, they were furnished to him, whilst at the same time an invitation to return and dine was given to him. This he promised to accept, but he was never seen again, one or two pointed questions having no doubt given him the alarm. What is still more extraordinary, he has not since been heard of, perhaps considering it advisable to take some less prominent travelling character than that of an official so well known as Captain Douglass.