But as day by day passed and the wives returned not, the old woman began to suspect that her son knew more than he said. She asked him no more, but quietly watched her opportunity, when her son was away hunting, and then followed the tracks of the wives. She tracked them to the creek, and as she saw no tracks of their return, she went into the creek, felt about, and there found the two bodies fast on the stakes. She managed to get them off and out of the creek, then she determined to try and restore them to life, for she was angry that her son had not told her what he had done, but had deceived her as well as his wives. She rubbed the women with some of her medicines, dressed the wounds made by the stakes, and then dragged them both on to ants' nests and watched their bodies as the ants crawled over them, biting them. She had not long to wait; soon they began to move and come to life again.
As soon as they were restored Goonur took them back to the camp and said to Goonur her son, "Now once did I use my knowledge to restore life to you, and again have I used it to restore life to your wives. You are all mine now, and I desire that you live in peace and never more deceive me, or never again shall I use my skill for you:"
And they lived for a long while together, and when the Mother Doctor died there was a beautiful, dazzlingly bright falling star, followed by a sound as of a sharp clap of thunder, and all the tribes round when they saw and heard this said, "A great doctor must have died, for that is the sign." And when the wives died, they were taken up to the sky, where they are now known as Gwaibillah, the red star, so called from its bright red colour, owing, the legend says, to the red marks left by the stakes on the bodies of the two women, and which nothing could efface.
23. DEEREEREE THE WAGTAIL, AND THE RAINBOW
Deereeree was a widow and lived in a camp alone with her four little girls. One day Bibbee came and made a camp not far from hers. Deereeree was frightened of him, too frightened to go to sleep. All night she used to watch his camp, and if she heard a sound she would cry aloud: "Deerceree, wyah, wyah, Deereeree," Sometimes she would be calling out nearly all night.
In the morning, Bibbee would come over to her camp and ask her what was the matter that she had called out so in the night. She told him that she thought she heard some one walking about and was afraid, for she was alone with her four little girls.
He told her she ought not to be afraid with all her children round her. But night after night she sat up crying: "Wyah, wyah, Deereeree, Deereeree."
At last Bibbee said! "If you are so frightened, marry me and live in my camp. I will take care of you." But Deereeree said she did not want to marry. So night after night was to be heard her plaintive cry of "Wyah, wyah, Deereeree, Deereeree." And again and again Bibbee pressed her to share his camp and marry him. But she always refused. The more she refused the more he wished to marry her. And he used to wonder how he could induce her to change her mind.
At last he thought of a plan of surprising her into giving her consent. He set to work and made a beautiful and many coloured arch, which, when it was made, he called Euloowirree, and he placed it right across the sky, reaching from one side of the earth to the other. When the rainbow was firmly placed in the sky, and showing out in all its brilliancy, of many colours, as a roadway from the earth to the stars, Bibbee went into his camp to wait. When Deereeree looked up at the sky and saw the wonderful rainbow, she thought something dreadful must be going to happen. She was terribly frightened, and called aloud: "Wyah, wyah." In her fear she gathered her children together, and fled with them to Bibbee's camp for protection.