When I arrived at the station I talked with the natives about the event. They seemed to be surprised, but observing that I knew all about the matter, they found there was no use of assuming ignorance, and they began to converse with me about the murder as a matter well known to them. Thus I secured all the details in regard to this horrible affair. But they held it perfectly proper for Jimmy to kill the white man who was unwilling to share his food with him. I made them understand that this was not my view, and threatened to send for the police. This threat I would also have carried out, had not, three days later, a sergeant of the native police, with a few troopers, accidentally come and encamped at Herbert Vale. He had been in Cardwell to fetch provisions and liquor for his chief, who lived on the table-land.

When the blacks saw the police their memory again failed them. It was no longer Jimmy who had murdered the white man, but two other blacks, Kamera and Boko. In a certain sense this was true, for a year and a half previously they had actually murdered a white man. It was thought that he had been eaten by a crocodile, and now for the first time it was discovered that a murder had been committed, but this man was not Jimmy's victim. By confusing the two events, they tried to draw attention away from Jimmy. For Kamera and Boko they cared less, they being strangers, but Jimmy belonged to their own tribe and must be saved.