A heavy silence over the bush just here, just a murmurous cackling, squawking, crooning of wildfowl upstream.

Burradella took his boys back and up along the bank and soon the swamp opened to them in a wide sheet of water, cluttered here and there with flocks of ducks, the white of solemn pelicans, jet black of the cruising swan, blue and white of crane and egret. Plainly now came the call of many wildfowl, the carefree, brazen trumpet-call of the dancing brolga, and from the trees screech of cockatoos and galahs and parrots, whirring flocks of bronzewing pigeons, whistling, cooing, and twittering of many bush birds. The water edges were hemmed in by reeds that stretched away back into long grasses walled in by the oaks and gums; the broad sheet of calm water gleamed under the sunlit blue of sky.

Cautiously, so as not to startle game, Burradella’s boys climbed trees in an endeavour to overlook the speck of water-weed that was Gilwan, and watch if possible the progress of Wanawah. But never once did Wanawah betray himself. Hostile tribesmen could have passed within yards without detecting him. He was in trouble, all the same. Crouching amongst the long grass, almost staring into the questing eyes of a swamp wallaby now sitting uneasily back on its tail, its pretty eyes staring inquiringly, its ears twitching this way and that to catch any hostile sound, its nostrils sniffing the air from this direction, then that. The animal sensed that danger hovered near, yet it could see nothing suspicious, could hear nothing but the peaceful sounds of the bush, could smell no tang of enemy.

Wanawah lay motionless. He knew that if he startled the wallaby it would bound away and the agitated thud! thud! thud! of its feet, the urgency of its going, would cause any hostile scouts to pause, then walk back along its tracks to find out what had alarmed it. And in that case Wanawah would have failed in his test.

Uneasily the wallaby hopped a few yards away, then sat back again, watching, listening, sniffing. After a while a vagrant air current brought it a tang of wild blackboy. It sniffed a moment longer. There was no sound, no hostile movement, but again it got a faint whiff of blackboy. Uneasily it hopped away.

Wanawah breathed again. A wallaby hopping casually along would raise no suspicions in the mind or eye of a hostile scout. Cautiously he crept along again.

Presently he stopped. It was not that the grass ahead grew so much shorter; it was at sight of a sunlit white flower perched high up on a red-gum branch leaning out over the water’s edge.

That white flower was a cockatoo on sentry duty, overlooking the richly grassed portion of the swamp shore where its friends were hungrily foraging for grass seeds or enjoying a morning’s bath by the clear water’s edge, pluming their feathers with gurgling clucks of pleasure. Any suspicious movement down below or round the edge of the swamp would cause the sentry to screech questioningly and alert other sentry birds watching from other trees, those white flowers that were cockatoos, and those pink flowers that were galahs. Any further movement, and a score of yellow crests would arise, piercing screeches would warn every bird all along the swamp shore—animals also, while if man were within hearing he would pause and turn to gaze questioningly back to where those white flowers would now stand out upon the highest tree-tops, yellow crests raised, each bird peering down upon and along the shore from its strategic perch, each bird seeming to have grown larger.