"Then she knew that in her journeyings she had found the Moon!"
She wandered on, in doubt and fear—fear, not of this strange new land, but of the men she dreaded to find there. But for a long time she saw no people. Only in the dim hours, when the earth-world glowed like a star, but all the moon-country was dark, there came about her the Little People that she knew and loved—Padi-padi, and Punta, Talka and Kanungo. And because she was very lonely, and a lonely woman loves the touch of something small and soft, she took some of them up and carried them with her in her dilly-bag.
"How did you know I was lost?" she asked them.
"How did we know?" they said, laughing at her. "Why, all the forest sang of it! The magpie chattered it in the dewy mornings, and Moko-Moko, the Bell-Bird, told all about it to the creeks in the gullies. Moko-Moko would not leave his quiet places to tell the other animals, but he knew the creeks would carry the story. Soon there was no animal in all the Bush that did not know where you had gone. Only we could not tell your own stupid people, for they would not understand."
"And are they looking for me?" Miraga asked.
"They seek for you night and day. Your father has led a party of fighting-men to the east, and Konawarr has gone north with all his friends. They never rest—all the time they seek you. And the women are wailing in the camp, and the little children crying, because you are gone."
That made Miraga cry, too.
"Can you not take me back?" she begged. "I can go if you will show me the way."