“No, Joe,” he said; “this is not a path used by human beings. Look down at the footprints.”
I looked down to see the hoof-marks of innumerable wild creatures, and said so.
“Yes,” replied the doctor, “it is a track down to the river, followed by the animals that go to drink, and we shall not be long before we get to the water side.”
Our way did not seem wearisome, for there was so much to see, the birds in particular taking my attention greatly. One moment a flock of black cockatoos would fly screaming by, then a cloud of brilliantly-coloured parroquets, and in one opening we came upon what looked at first like a gigantic beech-tree completely alive with tiny blue-and-green parrots about the size of sparrows, climbing, fluttering, chattering, and chirping, now with their heads up, now heads down, and forming one of the prettiest sights I had ever seen.
I could have shot twenty or thirty together as they sat in rows upon the bare branches, so little did they heed our presence; but it was unnecessary to destroy their little lives, and we passed on.
I was less merciful an hour later, for food was a necessity, and I was fortunate enough to bring down at the first shot a beautiful little deer that started up in our very path.
My shot seemed to alarm the whole forest and set it in an uproar: birds shrieked, monkeys chattered, and to right and left there was a rushing crackling noise, as of big creatures seeking flight. There was a deep-mouthed howl, too, away on our right that made me look anxiously at the doctor.
“I don’t know, Joe,” he replied, as if in answer to a spoken question. “There may be tigers here, and leopards, and old men of the woods, big as ourselves. It is new land, my lad, so don’t look to me for information.”
“Dat big bunyip,” said Jimmy in a scared whisper. “Take black fellow—kill um, eatum.”
Just then we heard the same beating noise that had fallen upon our ears the previous day.