Mili Atoll
In 1869, Becke travelled to San Francisco with his brother William Vernon and was away for nineteen months. At 16 years of age, Becke was a stowaway on a ship bound for Samoa. In Apia he took a job as a book-keeper in the store of Mrs Mary Mcfarlane which he held until some time after December 1872. Under orders of Mrs Mcfarlane, Becke sailed a ketch, the "E.A. Williams" to Mili Atoll to deliver it to William "Bully" Hayes, the notorious blackbirder. Beck arrived at Mili Atoll on 17 January 1874. Becke remained as a passenger on the "Leonora", until the ship was wrecked on 15 March 1874 during a storm while in Lele harbour at Kosrae. It was seven months until HMS Rosario rescued Becke and the others. Becke was later arrested for piracy, but was acquitted in Brisbane at age 19. Then he tried his luck at the Palmer River goldrush, was employed at Ravenswood station and from 1878–79 worked as a bank clerk in Townsville, Queensland. The story "Nell of Mulliner's Camp" is set in a mining camp in North Queensland.