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 Dot saw that, she didn't know why it all seemed solemn,
or why she felt such a very little girl. She was a little sad, and the