down."
Dot would have asked why everything must be so quiet; but as she peeped
out, she saw that the Kangaroo was making a very dangerous descent, and
she did not like to trouble her friend with questions just then. They
seemed to be going down to a great deep gully that looked almost like a
hole in the earth, the depth was so great, and the hills around came so
closely together. The way the Kangaroo was hopping was like going down
the side of a wall. Huge rocks were tumbled about here and there.
Some looked as if they would come rolling down upon them; and others
appeared as if a little jolt would send them crashing and tumbling into
the darkness below. Where the Kangaroo found room to land on its feet
after each bound puzzled Dot, for there seemed no foothold anywhere.
It all looked so dangerous to the little girl that she shut her eyes,
so as not to see the terrible places they bounded over, or rested on:
she felt sure that the Kangaroo must lose her balance, or hop just a
little too far or a little too near, and that they would fall together
over the side of that terrible wild cliff. At last she said:
"Oh, Kangaroo, shall we get safely to the bottom do you think?"
"I never think," said the Kangaroo, "but I know we shall. This is the
easiest way. If I went through the thick bush on the other side, I
should stand a chance of running my head against a tree at every leap,
unless I got a stiff neck with holding my head on one side looking out
of one eye all the time. My nose gets in the way when I look straight
in front," she explained. "Don't be afraid," she continued, "I know
every jump of the way. We kangaroos have gone this way ever since
Australia began to have kangaroos. Look here!" she said, pausing on a
big boulder that hung right over the gully, "we have made a history
book for ourselves out of these rocks; and so long as these rocks last,
long long after the time when there will be no more kangaroos, and no
more humans, the sun, and the moon, and the stars will look down upon
what we have traced on these stones."
Dot peered out from her little refuge in the Kangaroo's pouch, and saw
the glow of the twilight sky reflected on the top of the boulder. The
rough surface of the stone shone with a beautiful polish like a looking
glass, for the rock had been rubbed for thousands of years by the soft
feet and tails of millions of Kangaroos: kangaroos that had hopped
down that way to get water. When
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