Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III TOMMY Ej-AN made a companion of young Jack Ormsby. When the boy had a holiday they rode away into the bush, camping out in real colonial style. All this delighted the lad, and Logan found pleasure in his society. Jack was an observant youth, took notice of everything, became an expert bushman at an early age. There was some wild country round Stockwood. Forests of giant eucalyptus trees, with their many branches and foliage of small leaves hanging down towards the ground. In many parts the scrub was dense and difficult, at times impossible, to penetrate on horseback. They rode round, making wide circuits, Logan pointing out to him numerous plants, trees, flowers, and animals, telling him their names and habits, interesting him in their growth, and the ways of the marsupials which abounded in this region. The blacks made humpeys for them, in which with food. Ducks were plentiful on the lagoons: also quail, geese, black swan, scrub turkeys; and there was an ample quantity of fish in the river and its creeks. Spat was plentiful, not difficult to obtain, although considerable caution had to be exercised in approaching the game. Acacias, tea trees, myrtles, and sandalwood were occasionally found, and at certain seasons the yellow flower of the wattle tree added a tinge of colour to the somewhat sombre landscape. Hundreds of huge eucalyptus trees were ring-barked, their gaunt, bare arms outstretched like grim skeletons; while beneath luscious grass grew unhindered by the now dead roots. On a moonlight night these weird spectres of once flourishing trees presented a curious sight. On every hand giants of the forest were felled by the fierce storms, and lay cumbering the ground, decaying slowly, the wood being hard and tough. Miles of country had been partially...