not to aim too high. Now if that shot of your's, had been made rather lower, you would have been in a pretty fix, and I should have been out of it."
After recounting all that had befallen him since leaving, Dodge concluded by desiring them, as soon as they had refreshed, to prepare for starting. "Eat plenty of the kangaroo," he said, as he laid several large lumps of the flesh before them, "but be very sparing of the flour." The latter warning was not altogether unnecessary, for their stock of "the staff of life" was grown very slender. A very little flour, just sufficient to make, when mixed with water, about half a pint of rather thin paste, was all either of our friends could afford to expend at a single meal.
Concluding from the quantity of flesh found at the camp that the late occupiers must recently have come from the plains, and that the fright they had experienced in the night would probably induce them to return thither, Dodge determined to adopt the hazardous expedient of following their trail. The party set off in Indian file, Dodge taking the lead. They soon reached a more level and open country. During the afternoon a deep, though not wide, river barred their progress. Choosing a convenient situation to occupy for the night, advantage was taken of the daylight to look about them. Several gum trees were observed to have been denuded of very large sheets of bark, which Dodge was not long in declaring had been done for the purpose of constructing canoes, and that in all probability one might be found by making a careful search along the banks of the river on the opposite shore. For Dodge to strip and plunge in was only the work of a minute, in another he was across and lost amongst the tall reeds which lined the stream. Presently a long sheet of bark, which scarcely floated, was thrust forcibly towards our friends, and Dodge followed and prevented it from sinking.
