In the early morning she was awakened by feeling something cool on her face. She sprang up with a cry of terror which promptly turned to one of delight.
"Dandy, my own Dandy!" she cried, throwing her arms around the pony's neck.
"Oh, Kadok, here is my pony. He has wandered away and we must be not far from Djerinallum!"
The little pony seemed as pleased as she, and Kadok's face lighted up,
"Little Missa take road with pony and ride safe now. Say good-bye to Kadok and run 'long home."
"You make me angry, Kadok," she cried. "Here you've taken care of me all these days and now you want me to run off and leave you! I don't think you're nice at all. You shall come with me to the run. You can ride when your foot is tired and I'll ride part of the time. It can't be far now. You go catch a fish and we'll have breakfast, then we'll start."
Kadok looked astonished as the little fury scolded, but he obeyed, and soon a fine fish sizzled on the fire stone.
They started off for the main road, which Kadok said was not far away through the bushes, Jean riding her pony and feeling bright and cheerful. When they reached the road after several hours riding, she saw that Kadok was limping painfully. She jumped off the pony and said,
"You must ride now. I know your foot hurts and I'm tired of riding and want to walk awhile. Get on and I will walk along and hold Dandy's rein."
[Illustration: "THE BLACK BOY ON A PONY LED BY A WHITE CHILD."]
"Little Missa get very boss. Time Missa get back to white folks," he grumbled, as he climbed slowly on the horse's back. "Gin never say 'do' to Kadok," but Jean only laughed at him and trudged along.
It was an odd picture on which the Australian sun shone, the black boy on a pony led by a white child in tattered gingham, and two travellers scanned the couple curiously as they urged their horses along. Catching up with the children they would have passed, but Jean suddenly cried,
"Jeanie! What on earth!" but the rest of her father's sentence was lost as he clasped the child in his arms and Jean knew that her troubles were over.
"There was a terrible hue and cry, lassie, when it was discovered that Dandy and you were lost," said her uncle that night as she lay, tired but happy, her mother beside her, in a corner of the big couch in the morning room at Djerinallum. "Scouts were sent everywhere, but you seemed to have dropped off the earth. Parties have been searching ever since, but no one has been successful in finding even a trail. We traced you to the place in the woods where you got off your pony, but beyond that there were no tracks. Kadok says that the Black who took you did not mean any harm. His gin was nearly crazy over the death of her child, a little girl younger than you, and he wanted to take you to her to see. They had heard of you from the gin to whom you gave a curl. The Blacks think that when a Black dies he returns to the earth as a white, and he wanted his gin to see you, thinking that you might be his own child come back."