Dot looked once more at the hideous figures as they left the fire and
behaved like actors in a play. One of the black fellows had come from a
little bower of trees, and wore a few skins so arranged as to make him
look as much like a Kangaroo as possible, whilst he worked a stick which
he pretended was a Kangaroo's tail, and hopped about. The other painted
savages were creeping in and out of the bushes with their spears and
boomerangs as if they were hunting, and the dressed-up Kangaroo made
believe not to see them, but stooped down, nibbling grass.

"What an idea of a Kangaroo!" sniffed Dot's friend, "why, a real Kangaroo
would have smelt or heard those Humans, and have bounded away far out of
sight by now."

"But it's all sham," said Dot; "the black man couldn't be a real Kangaroo."

"Then it just shows how stupid Humans are to try and be one," said her
friend. Humans think themselves so clever, she continued, "but just see
what bad Kangaroos they make--such a simple thing to do, too! But their
legs bend the wrong way for jumping, and that stick isn't any good for a
tail, and it has to be worked with those big, clumsy arms. Just see, too,
how those skins fit! Why it's enough to make a Kangaroo's sides split with
laughter to see such foolery!" Dot's friend peeped at the black's acting
with the contempt to be expected of a real Kangaroo, who saw human beings
pretending to be one of those noble animals. Dot thought the Kangaroo had
never looked so grand before. She was so tall, so big, and yet so
graceful: a really beautiful creature.

"Well, that's over!" remarked the Kangaroo, as one of the blacks pretended
to spear the dressed-up black fellow, and all the rest began to dance