How they'd scurry off through the scrub and up the range, where it was like the side of a house, and that full of slate-bars all upon edge that you could smell the hoofs of the brumbies as the sharp stones rasped and tore and struck sparks out of them like you do the parings in a blacksmith's shop.
Then, just as I thought daybreak was near, a great mopoke flits close over our heads without any rustling or noise, like the ghost of a bird, and begins to hoot in a big, bare, hollow tree just ahead of us.
Hoo-hoo! hoo-hoo! The last time I heard it, it made me shiver a bit.

Now I didn't care.

I was a desperate man that had done bad things, and was likely to do worse.

But I was free of the forest again, and had a good horse under me; so I laughed at the bird and rode on..