"I should have thought you would care, that you might have some idea if there really is such a hiding-place, for you are always about on the run, and they say no one knows the Upper Luya as well as you do."
"There might be any sort of cave or hiding-place up in the gorges by Bardlin Scrub. Cattle don't go there—except the regular scrubbers that it is no use trying to get at. They used to hunt there for gold. One of these prospecting chaps would have been more likely to come across it, or the Blacks"
"Oh, but there's a Black's legend," said Elsie eagerly.
"If you are going to make a legend out of a Black's tale about the Bunyip or Debil-debil!" he said contemptuously.
"It is a legend, and quite a respectable one. Yoolaman Tommy—King Tommy you know—told me. He says that close to Baròlin Waterfall at the back there is another smaller waterfall, and beside it a huge black rock which is shaped like a man's head with long grey moss growing upon it, so that it looks, as if it were a very old black man with grey hair and a beard. Have you ever seen it?"
"No, Baròlin Waterfall is a cul-de-sac. The water is supposed to come from the lake on the top of the mountain and the precipice cuts the mountain. They say the lake is the crater of an extinct volcano."
"Let us make a picnic there sometime and try to find old Baròlin—the Old Man of the Mountain. Do."
"You couldn't do it. I have never got to the waterfall myself, and I'm a pretty good rider and Pioneer as safe a horse in rough country as you'd find on the Luya."
Frank Hallett patted the big powerful bay who turned from rubbing his cheek against the cedar-tree, as if he knew that he was being talked about.
"We might ride as far as we could and walk the rest of the way," said Elsie.
"Walk five miles over the Luya rocks and through Baròlin Scrub! There wouldn't be much left of you, Miss Valliant."
