126 JUNGLE ISLAND 



The crazy little board shack was set about 

 fifty feet up the hillside, by the cleared trail, on 

 a shelf not so steep as the rest of the hill. There 

 was a little footpath running to a near-by brook 

 where I got my drinking water. The rest of the 

 hillside was a tangle of green trees, shrubs, and 

 vines. Among these I knew the palms and the 

 broad-leaved heUconias, but the other plants had 

 never got into any greenhouse I knew, nor been 

 named in any picture book of my acquaintance, 

 though I grew to know many of them later. 

 They made a strange green frame for the long 

 inlet, and it only made me feel even farther away 

 from home to catch once in a while a gUmpse of 

 a great ocean freighter sHding quietly past far 

 out in the lake. 



The first moving thing to catch my attention 

 in this imfamihar picture was a Httle AnoHs 

 Hzard, hopping across the open space like Old 

 Man Kangaroo, thirty inches to one hop. He 

 started to cHmb a near-by tree and I made after 

 him with a net in one hand. I peeped around the 

 tree, holding the net on the other side of the tree 

 in case he ran. He did not run. He kept his 

 small bright eyes on me and dodged the clumsy 

 efforts that I made to catch him with the net 

 around the tree. 



In California I had caught rock Hzards in my 

 hands, and I tried that plan on AnoHs now. My 

 open hand struck the tree where he had been 



