the
moss, but Miss Fantail wasn't taken in for a moment, but flitted down
to them and put her head on one side in her bright-eyed inquisitive way.

[Illustration: Miss Fantail, the most inquisitive creature in the bush.]

"Now she'll begin to ask questions," muttered Swanki, and sure enough
Miss Fantail began in her usual manner:

"Whit--Whit--Whit--What? What? What? What? Where are you two off to?
Whit! What are you after? What? When are you coming back? Why are you
going so fast? Whit--Whit--Whit--What? What? What?"

And when they wouldn't answer she persisted in following them, flitting
in her restless way from tree to tree, sometimes darting ahead of them,
sometimes circling round them, and never ceasing to cry inquisitively:

"Whit--Whit--Whit--What? What? What? What?"

On the very edge of the bush, however, she hesitated. She had been born
in the bush, and was used only to its cool green shade, and the glare of
the sun on the outside world rather scared her. So after hanging about
for a time to see what the Piccaninnies intended doing, she flitted away
after a large blue fly, and while she was busy Tiki and Swanki gave her
the slip. They, too, had been rather dismayed at the glare of the sun
and the shelterless look of the outside world, but Tiki said that the
Pickled Cabbage trees were not far away; he had seen them once when he
had climbed to the top of a rata tree, and a bush pigeon had told him
the name of them.

So, shrinking a little and keeping a sharp look-out for enemies in case
they had need to "drop dead" and pretend to be a dead stick or leaf,
they ran on hand in hand, and came after a time to the edge of the
swamp.

"There!" said Tiki proudly, "there are the Pickled Cabbage trees."

There were quite a number of them, tall slim trees with long bare trunks
and a crown of long, narrow leaves at the top.

"We must climb to the top to find the cabbages," said Swanki; but though
they had done a lot of climbing in their day, it was usually up trees
with plenty of branches and twigs to help them.

They found it very hard to get a grip with their little, bare, brown
knees on the long, smooth trunks, and Tiki frowned thoughtfully at his
tree as he slid down for the fifth time.

"You give me a leg up first," said Swanki, "and when I'm up I'll give
you one," which was rather a silly thing to say when you come to think
of it.

However, you can do most things if you try hard enough, and Swanki,
seei