Yet again Walcha the sun had risen from far over the mountains bringing light and warmth and life to the Gunn-e-darr men, and to the world they did not dream of. The look-out men had gone away to their duties; the people had eaten. Casually the warriors picked up their hunting weapons and, idly talking, strolled away in small groups in different directions, followed by boys of from ten to twelve proudly carrying their first real hunting weapons, light weapons, lethal enough for small game. Should a pademelon or bandicoot or kangaroo-rat fall to a boy’s spear then a happy hunter he would be, his skill the envy of his comrades.

Meanwhile the women and girls, with the younger boys, in three chattering groups were leaving camp. One group was making for the big swamp, one to Connewarri, “place of the black swans”, one to Gulligal, “place of the long grass”, where the blue-grass flat was rich in grass seeds, carrying their grass-woven dilly-bags and their coolamons. Each woman had also her long, fire-hardened, sharp-pointed digging stick and her stone tomahawk.

Strolling along at their rear and flank went a few elderly guards to watch that no incautious or mischievous girls strayed from the others. For as the groups spread out in the hunting there were bound to be stragglers, usually chattering young girls, often with one or two amongst them daringly contemptuous of the danger of being ambushed and hurried away by raiding parties of hostile women-stealers.

The mother of Weetah and her baby brother, Tuki, had been carried away thus on one bright morning just twelve moons ago. She and a young girl, busy at their yam-digging, had dawdled behind, not noticing that the women ahead were now strolling in amongst a patch of brigalow-trees, the unobservant guards disappearing with them. Lurking woman-stealers from the Goonoo Goonoo tribe had pounced upon them and forced them to run with them for many miles until they had got them clear away.

Since then Weetah had been a mother to baby Tuki. And now the young girl spoke reproachfully.

“Oh, Tuki! Where are your eyes?”

Tuki gazed hard all around, then triumphantly pointed at a mark on the soft earth so small and faint it seemed a miracle that his sister had noticed it.

“What is it?” questioned Weetah.

Tuki bent down on hands and knees, looked carefully, crawled along, found a following track then exclaimed, “Possum!”

“Right! Now which way is it going?”

Carefully Tuki examined the faint little marks, then pointed.

“Good boy!” said Weetah. “That naughty possum has been out all night. With the coming of Walcha the sun he has hurried home to sleep. Follow him.”

And Tuki did so, his plump little body bent low to earth, his big, solemn eyes to the ground. Slowly he crawled on, noting just here and there the imprint of a tiny paw upon soft earth. And then he quite lost the track. No matter how carefully he searched, no matter how his little brow furrowed in thought, he simply could not pick up the track again. No wonder, for fallen leaves lay upon the grass-strewn earth, vines trailed over fallen branches, big logs lay every here and there. How then was it possible for a little boy to follow the delicate imprints of a small animal that hours before had made its way over all this litter of the great bush?