Two days later we had come to a halt in a lovely little glen through which trickled a clear spring whose banks were brilliant with flowers. We were all busy cooking and preparing to halt there for the night. My father had walked the whole of the morning, and now had wandered slowly away along the banks of the stream, Mr Francis being a little further on, while Jimmy was busy standing beside a pool spearing fish.
I glanced up once or twice to see that my father was standing motionless on the bank, and then I was busying myself once more cutting soft boughs to make a bed when Jimmy came bounding up to me with his eyes starting and mouth open.
“Where a gun, where a gun?” he cried. “Big bunyip down ’mong a trees, try to eat Jimmy. Ask for um dinner, all aloud, oh.”
“Hush! be quiet!” I cried, catching his arm; “what do you mean?”
“Big bunyip down ’mong stones say, ‘Hoo! much hungry; where my boy?’”
“Some one said that?” I cried.
“Yes, ‘much hungry, where my boy?’ Want eat black boy; eat Jimmy!”
“What nonsense, Jimmy!” I said. “Don’t be such a donkey. There are no bunyips.”
“Jimmy heard um say um!” he cried, stamping his spear on the ground.
Just then I involuntarily glanced in the direction where my father stood, and saw him stoop and pick up a flower or two.