pulpy stems, and horrid water snakes showed themselves from under decaying logs, and the fallen chestnut pods had rotted, and there was a moist fetid feeling that Elsie said reminded her of Hans Andersen's witch stories.
They seemed to be going right up into the mountains, which began to close in round them, all the seams and fissures in the precipices showing distinctly. Presently at its narrowest part the valley opened out in a chain of flats, and Frank pointed to a gully cutting down into the neck and said, "That's our show lion—Point Row—what we are coming out for to see. We shall stop there for tea, and then, if you don't mind a climb, we'll get down the rocks on the other side, and the black boys shall take the horses round to meet us, and we can come home by the Dead Finish Flats, and have a moonlight gallop, if you like."
"It would be heavenly," said Elsie. "Look! Isn't that Mr. Trant coming across the flat?"
It was Trant, who, mounted on a fresh horse, had ridden out to meet them.
"You can canter all the way now to the Gorge," he cried. "Come, Miss Valliant, luncheon is waiting."
He contrived to get beside Elsie. "I expected to see you riding with Blake," he said, "but it's a bad road, isn't it, for flirtation?"
"Why do you always drag in that horrible word?"
"Is it a horrible word? I thought it was one you were particularly fond of. You won't pretend that you haven't been flirting outrageously this last day or two. I hope you observed that I haven't given you much chance to-day of flirting with me."
"I wondered why you had gone away so early this morning."
"In order that you might have something to eat for luncheon. No, it wasn't that. Blake said he'd go. Or a message by Sam Shehan would have done as well. The truth is that you're beginning to make me uncomfortable, and I don't like it."
"I thought it was you who generally made people un-
