"Bless you, 'Possum, I always get truth from you," he said. He shook his head at the man. "No, thanks," he said; and the black fellow looked surlier than ever. The woman uttered a quick jabber of words that included something about "bacca."
"Oh, they can have that," Tom said. He took a piece of tobacco from his pocket and tossed it to the man, who caught it deftly, his heavy face lightening for a moment. Then the boat chugged her way onward, and they lost sight of the little clearing.
"'Fraid I was a bit rude that time," said 'Possum. "But if you once let one of those fellers come to your house, you're never free of them. They'll turn up at any hour and want tucker and baccy; an' what's more, they'll tell their friends, and you'll have them callin' too. And they'd steal the very clothes off your back. Nothin's safe from them—the washin' out on the line, an' the chickens, an' the things in the shed. They're a caution when they take to hangin' round a place."
"But won't they come in any case?" asked Aileen.
"Oh, they may, of course. But they're queer people; if once they're told to call at a place they seem to think they've got a hold on it for keeps, an' they'll come back for years an' years."
"Where do they live, 'Possum?"
"Those people have most likely been in one of the settlements—Ramahyuck or Lake Tyers. The woman's dress looks like it: she'd never be as neat as that if she hadn't been in a mission station. They treat 'em jolly well there—give 'em decent little cottages to live in, an' just enough work to keep 'em going. But they always break out now an' then, an' one or two'll clear out to the Bush an' camp for a while. They'll go back when the cold weather comes—or before that, if they aren't pickin' up enough food. An' they don't much mind where an' how they pick it up, I can tell you."
"Why wouldn't you let Dad buy the boomerang, 'Poss?" asked Garth.
"I'd make you a better one meself," 'Possum answered. "It's really only the old men who know much about either makin' or throwin' boomerangs: none of these young ones'll bother themselves. You could throw that affair he was makin' into the air, same as you could any old stick, but it wouldn't return to you. Most people don't know the difference"—she grinned at Tom shamefacedly—"an' they get a sale for all sorts of rubbishy stuff among the summer visitors. But it's no more real black's stuff than I am. That gets harder to buy every year, because the old men who used to make the things are dying out."
They had been gliding along gently, the water growing steadily shallower. Suddenly, they came upon the end of the arm—a pool like hundreds of other pools through which they had passed, save that in each of the others there had been an outlet, and here there was none. The water ended. All round them the trees frowned down upon the still surface, where leaves and sticks floated idly, never to get away: doomed to wash into the rubbish along the shore, or to become water-logged, and finally to sink to the muddy bottom. There was something unnaturally eerie and still about the place. Even the birds had deserted it: there was no longer the happy sound of their singing and twittering. Far overhead a fish-hawk sailed lazily.