rrawilberoo," for they knew there was a
devil in the whirlwind. They laid hold of trees near at hand that it
might not catch them. But the whirlwind spread out first one arm and
rooted up one tree, then another arm, and rooted up another. The boys
ran in fear from tree to tree, but each tree that they went to was torn
up by the whirlwind. At last they ran to two mubboo or beef-wood trees,
and clung tightly to them. After them rushed the whirlwind, sweeping
all before it, and when it reached the mubboo trees, to which the boys
were clinging, it tore them from their roots and bore them upward
swiftly, giving the boys no time to leave go, so they were borne upward
clinging to the mubboo trees. On the whirlwind bore them until they
reached the sky, where it placed the two trees with the boys still
clinging to them. And there they still are, near the Milky Way, and
known as Wurrawilberoo. The boomerangs are scattered all along the
Milky Way, for the whirlwind had gathered them all together in its rush
through space. Having placed them all in the sky, down came the
whirlwind, retaking its natural shape, which was that of the old man,
for so had he wreaked his vengeance on his sons for neglecting their
parents.

As time went on, the mothers wondered why their sons did not return. It
struck them as strange that the old man expressed no surprise at the
absence of the boys, and they suspected that he knew more than he cared
to say. For he only sat in the camp smiling while his wives discussed
what could have happened to them, and he let the women go out and
search alone. The mothers tracked their sons to the plain. There they
saw that a big whirlwind had lately been, for trees were uprooted and
strewn in every direction. They tracked their sons from tree to tree
until at last they came to the place where the mubboos had stood. They
saw the tracks of their sons beside the places whence the trees had
been uprooted, but of the trees and their sons they saw no further
trace. Then they knew that they had all been borne up together by the
whirlwind, and taken whither they knew not. Sadly they returned to
their camp. When night came they heard cries which they recognised as
made by the voices of their sons, though they sounded as if coming from
the sky. As the cries sounded again the mothers looked up whence they
came, and there they saw the mubboo trees with their sons beside them.
Then well they knew that they would see no more their