Northern Territory Times and Gazette
Fri 10 Nov 1899

Bufalo Shooter injured.

On Sunday night, about 11.30, a
black fellow arrived in town from
Cahill and Johnstone's buffalo shooting
camp, on the Adelaide River, bringing
the very bad news that W. Johnstone
had been horned by a wild bull, and
was lying in the camp unconscious
when the boy left.

Luckily the blackfellow (' Quiz ') brought in three horses with him riding one and driving the others, and as soon as they had had a sufficient rest and been fed Mr. Cahill started out for the scene, riding St.
Lawrence.

He left Palmerston about
five o'clock on Monday morning, and
covered the distance, something like
fifty miles over some very rough
country, in about six hours, arriving at
the camp at 11 o'clock with his horse
completely done.

The account given by Johnstone of
the accident is as follows: It appears
that he was out shooting Surabaya
cattle on foot, the grass was too high
to allow for a horse being used, and shot
two. He went towards them and
noticing that one was not dead he gave
it another bullet.

The animal, which was a bull, sprang to it's feet and turned round. Johnstone hastily slipped another cartridge into the breech, and as the animal charged met it with
bullet No. 3. The ball struck the bull
full in the mouth, passing up through
his head and out at the back of his
neck, but did not have the effect of
stopping it.

The hunter was now the
hunted. As the bull looked full of
'devil' Johnstone hastily came to the
conclusion that he would watch developments from a distance, and ran for a clump of corkscrew palms with the bull
close behind him.

He reached them in safety and commenced to dodge round them, but his foot caught in the long grass and he tripped and fell.
In an instant the bull was on him,
caught him on his horns, and tossed
him high in the air.

Fortunately the high grass prevented the bull seeing his victim, and after standing for some moments looking in the direction in which he had thrown Johnstone he dropped on his knees and died.

Johnstone soon found that he was very
badly injured; he had a hole in his
side just under the left breast, where
the bull's horn had entered and from
which the blood was pouring, and his
ribs were smashed in. He could just
speak when the blacks found him, and
sent one into Palmerston for assistance.

Before it arrived, however, he managed
to stop the flow of blood by binding
himself up with narghas and strapping
them tight with saddle straps. When
Cahill arrived he had the injured man
placed on a stretcher and carried down
the river several miles to where the
dinghy was moored in which it was intended to take him down to the mouth
to meet the Victoria, which left Palmerston
Monday afternoon.

Towards midnight a party from the launch put in an appearance, and the two parties
proceeded down the river, a distance of
seven miles, boarding the Victoria
about 3.30. Johnstone was immediately
placed under the care of Miss
Nelson, who was on board, and under
her able hands had made a great improvement by the time he reached Port
Darwin. He was taken direct to the
hospital.

We are pleased to be able to state
that Dr, Goldsmith reports that John
stone is now out of danger.

Article from;
Trove, National Library of Australia.
Image from Bing image creator.