ked in all directions, and Gyp kept baying first at the
foot of one tree then at the foot of another, he did not see it again.
Where it went it was impossible to say; perhaps it travelled along the
upper branches, swinging itself from bough to bough by its long arms;
but if it did, it was all so silently that not so much as a leaf
rustled, and we were all at fault.

I was not sorry, for the idea of shooting anything so like a human
being, and for no reason whatever, was rather repugnant to my feelings,
so that I did not share in my companion's disappointment.

"Depend upon it, he has not gone far," said the doctor, when Jack Penny
stood staring at the tree where we saw the ape first. "There, lie down,
my lad, and rest, and--hallo! what's the matter with Jimmy?"

I turned to see the black standing close by, his waddy in one hand, his
boomerang in the other, head bent, knees relaxed, an expression of the
greatest horror in his face, as he shivered from head to foot, and shook
his head.

"Why, what's the matter, Jimmy?" I cried.

"Bunyip," he whispered, "big bunyip debble--debble--eat all a man up.
Bunyip up a tree."

"Get out!" I said; "it was a big monkey."

"Yes: big bunyip monkey. Come 'way."

For the sudden disappearance of the ape had impressed Jimmy with the
idea that it was what the Scottish peasants call "no canny," and as it
was his first interview with one of these curious creatures, there was
some excuse for his apparent fear, though I am not certain that it was
not assumed.

For Jimmy was no coward so long as he was not called upon to encounter
the familiar demons of his people, the word bunyip being perhaps too
often in his mouth.

The black's dread went off as quickly as it came, when he found that he
was not noticed, and for the next two hours we lay resting, Jack Penny
and I seeing too many objects of interest to care for sleep. Now it
would be a great beetle glistening in green and gold, giving vent to a
deep-toned buzzing hum as it swept by; then a great butterfly, eight or
nine inches across, would come flitting through the trees, to be
succeeded by something so swift of flight and so rapid in the flutter of
its wings that we were in doubt whether it was a butterfly or one of the
beautiful sunbirds that we saw flashing in the sunshine from time to
time.

It proved afterwards to be a butterfly or day-moth, for we saw several
of them afterwards in the course of our journey.

Over the