Here and there stood up a lofty spotted gum, branchless for a hundred feet, and then spreading great, curved limbs above the other trees to terminate in fine, thin-leaved, steely-green foliage.

As they penetrated inland, birds began to attract Sterl. A crow with a dismal and guttural caw took him back to the creek bottoms of Texas. Another crow, black with white spotted wings, Jones called Australia's commonest bird, the magpie. It appeared curious and friendly, and had a melodious note that grew upon Sterl. It was deep and rich--a lovely sound--cur-ra-wong--cur-ra-wong.

"See you like birds. So do I," said Jones to Sterl. "Australians ought to, for we have hundreds of wonderful kinds. The lyrebird in the bush can imitate any song or sound he hears. Leslie Slyter loves them. She knows where they stay, too. Perhaps she'll take you at daybreak to hear them."

Here Red Krehl pricked up his ears to attention. Anything in the world that could be relegated in the slightest to femininity, Red clasped to his breast.

Presently the road led out of the jungle into a big area of ground cleared of all except the largest trees. On a knoll stood a house made of corrugated iron. Jones called it a cattle station. Sterl looked for cattle in vain. Red said. "Shines out like a dollar in a fog."

Grass and brush densely covered the undulating hills. Sterl concluded that Australian cattle were equally browsers and grazers. The road wound to and fro between the hills, keeping to a level, eventually to enter thick bush again. Sterl made the acquaintance of flocks of colored parrots--galahs the driver called them--that flew swiftly as bullets across the road; and then a flock of white cockatoos that squawked in loud protest at the invasion of their domain. When they sailed above the wagon, wide wings spread, Sterl caught a faint tinge of yellow. When they crossed the first brook, a clear swift little stream that passed on gleaming and glancing under the wide-spreading foliage, a blue heron and a white crane took lumbering flight.

They came into a wide valley, rich in wavy grass, and studded with bunches of cattle and horses. "Ha! Some hosses," quoth Red. As Jones slowed up along a bank higher than the wagon bed, Sterl heard solid thumping thuds, then a swish of grass, and Red's stentorian, "WHOOPEE!"

He wheeled in time to see three great, strange, furry animals leaping clear over the wagon. They had long ears and enormous tails. He recognized them in the middle of their prodigious leap, but could not remember their names. They cleared the road, to bound away as if on springs.

"Whoa!" yelled Red. "What'n'll was thet?... Did you see what I see? Lord! there ain't no such critters!"

"Kangaroos," said the teamster. "And that biggest one is an old man roo all right."

"Oh, what a sight!" exclaimed Sterl.