"Kadok!" she screamed, but the Black reached forth a long arm and tried to catch her. She drew back into the cave and screamed again. She had no weapon, but she grasped the dead snake by the tail and with all the strength she could muster threw it straight into the Black's face. The man gave a loud "Wouf!" as the reptile struck his face, and darted back just as Kadok came up behind and struck him on the head with his waddy. Attacked before and behind, the black man thought his enemies were many and he fled through the bushes as fast as he could go. Fear lent him wings and he did not stop until far from the scene of his terror. Kadok limped into the cave. "Little Missa hurt?" he asked anxiously. "No, but I was dreadfully frightened. It was the same Black I saw yesterday." "What little Missa do?" asked the boy. "I hadn't anything else, so I hit him with your snake and he ran away," she said simply. The boy looked at her in astonishment and then laughed loud and long. "Baiame teach little Missa to be good Bush girl," he said. "One thing very much scare Black is snake in the face. Missa do just right thing." "I didn't know just what to do, but I had to do something," she said. "What shall we do now, Kadok?" "Not know," he said, frowning. "Think best eat, rest to-night. Go long early in morning before Black come back. Missa make eat, then sleep. Not be afraid. Kadok watch." FOOTNOTES: [17] Big stick, like a shillalah. [18] Small animal. [19] Huts. CHAPTER X DANDY SAVES THE DAY IT was early in the morning when the two set out and the stars were still shining. "I never saw so many stars in all my life," said Jean. "It seems to me there are more in Australia than I ever saw in Scotland." "Think great plenty, maybe eighty-eight,"[20] said Kadok. Their way lay through a less beautiful part of the country than any Jean had seen before. It was a wild and lonely land, close to the edge of the scrub, beyond them only sand and spinifex. A fire had swept over the wood and left the trees gaunt and bare. They waved and tossed their gray branches like demons, and Jean shuddered, as on every side the ghostly trees seemed to hem her in. They came to a clearing where the trees had been cut down, and these, bleached and white, lay on the ground in a thousand gnarled and twisted shapes, their interlacing branches seeming like writhing serpents. Many of the gum trees had been killed, for the cuts in the bark had been made too deep, and the bark hung down in long strips.