“The Stockyard Creek depot was at the head of the gorge before the climb. It was a lonely spot. The floor of the gorge was a bare fifty yards wide and on either side the ranges rose steeply to a great height. The spot was a dark evil one. On summer nights, great black snakes would slide out of the way of one's horse. It was the favourite haunt of the subtle and terrible death adder, probably the world's deadliest reptile. There were occasional sounds too, which experienced bushmen could not account for.
It was a February night. There was a strong south-easter blowing, with black rolling clouds and misty rain, a night on which it would be difficult to see one's hand. Rose, who had taken a party of guests to the train in Beaudesert was returning late. She had got into a bog in the black soil flats and it had taken her a long while to get the car out. It was dark before she skidded up the jungle 'road' to the depot. Her horses were packed by the light of the headlights, an old trick, and soon her string was moving up the track. With her was a town youth, an excitable, highly strung lad. They rode rapidly for some distance up the climb, then reined in to give the horses a blow.
It was the youth who saw it first. He had been finding the dark ride a little too eerie for his liking and on looking uneasily over his shoulder, he saw something.
“What's that light?” He yelled.
Rose looked around. Fifty yards back, where the track turned a corner, there was a bright orange glow, which illuminated the falling rain. As they watched, it came around the corner of the track, a steady flame of light, about two candles power. It advanced for about four seconds and then disappeared.
Rose called out, but no answer.
Then the horses suddenly began to plunge and reef at their bits from fright.
Rose called out again, “Hallo, who are you?”
But again, no answer. Rose was curious, but not alarmed.
“I am going back to see what this is about,” she said, heading her horse down the dark track.
But the horse reared up, swung around and made back to the other horses, before she could check him. She swung the horse again, but this time the town lad asked her not to go back, saying that if she did, he would leave her and head off away from whatever this light was. Reluctantly, she agreed not to pursue the light, as she did not want to endanger herself, the boy or the horses.
Some weeks later, Bernard O'Reilly, himself, was to encounter the same light. This time, Bernard was bringing a group of people from Brisbane and Rose was driving a string of fourteen horses down the track to meet them. The horses were walking in single file down the cliff track and were strung out over a hundred yards or so.
About an hour after dark, the cavalcade reached the bend, where the light had been seen previously. Here, the leading horse, a stolid, unimaginative animal, the pack mare, snorted loudly and stopped. It took twenty minutes of shouting and throwing stones and everything else she could think of, before Rose could persuade the horse to walk on. On more than one occasion, afterwards, as the other horses came to that same spot, they would bunch up and stop. It was a long time before all the horse were past and the journey could continue as normal.
