roo. "That's his
way of telling us that we are safe."

"Thanks, Bittern! thanks!" they both cried, but the creamy brown bird
paid no attention to their gratitude: it seemed absorbed in looking for
frogs on its way.

All that day the Kangaroo and Dot stayed near the cave, so that the
poor animal might get quite well again. The Kangaroo said she did not
know that part of the country, and so she had better get her legs again
before they faced fresh dangers. Neither of them was so bright and
merry as before. The weather was showery, and Dot kept thinking that
perhaps she would never get home, now she had been so long away, and
she kept remembering the time when the little boy was lost and
everyone's sadness.

The Kangaroo too seemed melancholy.

"What makes you sad?" asked Dot.

"I am thinking of the last time before this that I was hunted. It was
then I lost my baby Kangaroo," she replied.

"Oh! you poor dear thing!" exclaimed Dot, "and have you been hunted
before last night?"

"Yes," said the Kangaroo with a little weary sigh. "It was just a few
days before I found you. White Humans did it that time."

"Tell me all about it," said Dot. "How did you escape?"

"I escaped then," said the Kangaroo, settling herself on her haunches
to tell the tale, "in a way I could have done last night. But I will
die sooner than do it again."

"Tell me," repeated Dot.

"There is not much to tell," said the Kangaroo. "My little Joey was
getting quite big, and we were very happy. It was a lovely Joey. It
was so strong, and could jump so well for its size. It had the
blackest of little noses and hands and tail you ever saw, and big soft
ears which heard more quickly than mine. All day long I taught it
jumping, and we played and were merry from sunrise to sunset. Until
that day I had never been sad, and I thought all the creatures must be
wrong to say that in this beautiful world there could be such cruel
beings as they said White Humans were. That day taught me I was wrong,
and I know now that the world is a sad place because Humans make it so;
although it was made to be a happy place. We were playing on the side
of a plain that day, and our game was hide and seek in the long grass.
We were having great fun, when suddenly little Joey said, 'strange
creatures are coming, big ones.'

"I hopped up to the stony rise that fringed the plain, and I thought as
I did so that I could hear a new sound on the breeze. Joey