party, which Frank Hallett had organized, to a picturesque gorge up the Luya. Hallett had done this partly to compensate Elsie for her disappointment in the matter of the picnic, and also because she had promised to ride Gipsy Girl, and he thought that he should thus have a chance of riding with her. He was a little disconcerted when Blake suggested to Mrs. Jem that since Point Row was not far from his place, Baròlin Gorge, they should ride over in the morning, have luncheon with Trant and himself, in their bachelor domicile, and take Point Row on their way homeward—or go to Point Row first, dine at the Gorge, and ride back the ten miles by moonlight.
It was the first plan which was decided upon. Before twelve o'clock the outsiders had all departed, and the remaining guests were on their way to Baròlin. Trant had started at daybreak, to make preparations for their reception.
Pompo, the half-caste, remained to drive the pack-horse, and, as he expressed it, "make him road budgery." Pompo was an elfish creature devoted to his master Blake, and curiously attracted to Elsie, perhaps because he saw that Blake was attracted in a greater and different degree. Pompo did not like Elsie's riding Gipsy Girl, and pointing to the Outlaw, with an air of reproach, asked, "What for you no like it yarraman, belonging to Blake."
"But I like your master's horse very much, Pompo," said Elsie, sweetly. "Only, you see, I rode it instead of Mr. Hallett's the other day, and it wouldn't be fair to ride it again."
Pompo did not fully enter into this reasoning, and he made Frank Hallett cross by coming perpetually to examine Elsie's girths, or to ask her if she wanted him to "make him road budgery." He rode ahead with a tomahawk slung over his shoulders, and would stop every now and then to cut away some overhanging vine, or to remove a piece of driftwood which the February floods had brought down. The impish creature's bead-like eyes continually turned to Elsie in a half-amused inquiring way, while he acted as
