Page:Barbour--Lost island.djvu/174

 perfectly gorgeous time barring when a snake crept over me while I was sleeping. Nice little fellow he was, all the colors of the rainbow. I could see the colors perfectly, as the moon was shining, and I took particular notice of him because only the previous day I'd had his tribe described to me. The old kangaroo hunter had been saying there was n't a snake in the bush that he really minded except that sort, as once he had a partner who trod on one and tied himself into seventeen different kinds of knots before he died, all in the course of ten minutes."

"Did you get any kangaroos?"

"Lots of 'em, and wallabys and things. We skinned the beasts and hung the pelts on trees in a straight line so that we could find them all again. We were in the bush about two months, and came back with all the skins our pack horses could carry. I'd signed on as a sort of super-cargo for that trip, not being an expert shot, but I got a third of the proceeds, which amounted to