He picked up the stone and ran back into the willum. Warreen lay by the fire and he flung the stone at him as hard as he could. It hit Warreen on the forehead, and immediately his forehead went quite flat.
"That's something for you to remember me by!" said Mirran angrily. "You can keep your dark little hole of a willum and live in it always, just as you can keep your flat forehead. I have done with you!"
He turned and ran out of the hut, for he was afraid that if he stayed he would kill Warreen. Behind him, Warreen staggered to his feet and caught hold of his spear, which leaned against the wall near the doorway. He did not make any reply, but he drove the spear into the darkness after Mirran, and it hit him in the back and hung there. Mirran fell down without a word. The light from the fire shone on him as he lay there in the rain, with the spear behind him.
Warreen laughed a little, holding by his door-post.
"I shall have a flat forehead, shall I?" he said. "Well, you will have more than that. Where that spear sticks, there shall it stick always, and it will be a tail for you. You will never run or jump without it again—and never shall you have a willum." Then he had no more strength left, so he crept back and lay beside his fire, while Mirran lay in the pouring rain.
No one saw Warreen and Mirran again as men. But from that time two new animals came into the Bush, and the Magpie and the Minah, those two inquisitive birds who know everything, soon found out their story and told it to all the black people. So everybody knows that Warreen, the Wombat, and Mirran, the Kangaroo, were once men and lived together. They do not live together now, nor do they like each other. The Wombat is fat and surly and lazy, and he lives in a dark, ill-smelling hole in the ground. His forehead is flat, and he does not go far from his hole; and he is no more fond of working for his living than he was when he lived in a willum as a man. The Kangaroo lives in the free open places, and races through the Bush as swiftly as Mirran used to race long ago. But always behind him he carries Moo-ee-boo, as the blacks call his tail, and it has grown so that he has to use it in running and jumping, and now he could not get on without it. He is just as quick and gentle as ever, but when he is angry he can fight with his forepaws, just as a man fights with his hands.
Other animals of the Bush have holes and hiding-places, but the Kangaroo has none. He does not look for shelter, but sleeps in the open air. It is difficult to see him, for when he is eating young leaves and grass his skin looks just the same colour as the trees, and you are sometimes quite close to him before his bright eyes are seen watching you eagerly. Then he turns and hops away, faster than a horse can gallop, in great bounds that carry him yards at every stride, with Moo-ee-boo, his long tail, thumping the ground behind him. He has learned to use it—to balance on it and make it help him in those immense leaps that no animal in the Bush can equal. So Warreen did not do him so bad a turn as he hoped when he threw his spear at him that rainy night long ago.
X
THE DAUGHTERS OF WONKAWALA
The Chief Wonkawala was a powerful man, who ruled over a big tribe. They were a fierce and warlike people, always ready to go out against other tribes; and by fighting they had gained a great quantity of property, and roamed unmolested through a wide tract of country—which meant that all the tribe was well-fed.