36
A LEAP FOR LIFE 44
THE BITTERN HELPS DOT 48
THE BOWER BIRDS 56
THE EMUS HUNTING THE SHEEP 60
THE COURT OF ANIMALS 64
THE COCKATOO JUDGE 66
THE PELICAN OPENS THE CASE 68
THE KANGAROO CARRIES DOT OUT OF COURT 72
DOT'S FATHER ABOUT TO SHOOT THE KANGAROO 74
DOT WAVING ADIEU TO THE KANGAROO 76
BY THE LAKE (EVENING) 80

DOT AND THE KANGAROO

CHAPTER I

Little Dot had lost her way in the bush. She knew it, and was very
frightened.

She was too frightened in fact to cry, but stood in the middle of a
little dry, bare space, looking around her at the scraggy growths of
prickly shrubs that had torn her little dress to rags, scratched her
bare legs and feet till they bled, and pricked her hands and arms as
she had pushed madly through the bushes, for hours, seeking her home.
Sometimes she looked up to the sky. But little of it could be seen
because of the great tall trees that seemed to her to be trying to reach
heaven with their far-off crooked branches. She could see little patches
of blue sky between the tangled tufts of drooping leaves, and, as the
dazzling sunlight had faded, she began to think it was getting late, and
that very soon it would be night.

The thought of being lost and alone in the wild bush at night, took her
breath away with fear, and made her tired little legs tremble under her.
She gave up all hope of finding her home, and sat down at the foot of
the biggest blackbutt tree, with her face buried in her hands and knees,
and thought of all that had happened, and what might happen yet.

It seemed such a long, long time since her mother had told her that she
might gather some bush flowers whilst she cooked the dinner, and Dot
recollected how she was bid not to go out of sight of the cottage. How
she wished now that she had remembered this sooner! But whilst she was
picking the pretty flowers, a hare suddenly started at her feet and
sprang away into the