slowly, and the animal began snorting and sidling away
among the timber, its rider meanwhile urging it forward. Then Emily
cried,

"Hello, Poss!" and the horse gave a snort, wheeled round, jumped a huge
fallen tree, and fled through the timber like a wild thing, with its
rider still apparently glued to its back. In half a second they were out
of sight.

"Who is it? and why does he go away?" asked Miss Grant.

"That's Poss," said Emily carelessly. "He and Binjie live over at
Dunderalligo. He often comes here. They and their father live over there
That's a colt he's breaking in. He's very nice. So is Binjie."

"Well, here he comes again," said Miss Grant, as the horseman
reappeared, riding slowly round them in ever-lessening circles; the colt
meanwhile eyeing them with every aspect of intense dislike and hatred,
and snorting between whiles like a locomotive.

Emily waited till the rider came fairly close, and said, "Poss, this is
Miss Grant."

The rider blushed, and lifted his hand to his hat. Fatal error! For the
hundredth-part of a second the horse seemed to cower under him as if
about to sink to the ground, then tucked his head in between his front
legs, and his tail in between the hind ones, forming himself into a kind
of circle, and began a series of gigantic bounds at the rate of about a
hundred to the minute; while in the air above him his rider described
a catherine wheel before he came to earth, landing on his head at Miss
Grant's feet. The horse was soon out of sight, making bounds that would
have cleared a house if one had been in the way. The rider got up,
pulled his hat from over his eyes, brushed some mud off his clothes, and
came up to shake hands as if nothing had happened; his motto apparently
being toujours la politesse.

"My word, can't he buck, Poss!" said the child. "He chucked you all
right, didn't he?"

"He got a mean advantage," said the young fellow, in a slow drawl.
"Makes me look a fair chump, doesn't it, getting chucked before a lady?
I'll take it out of him when I get on him again. How d' you do?"

"I'm very well, thank you," said Miss Grant. "I hope you are not hurt.
What a nasty beast! I wonder you aren't afraid to ride him."

"I ain't afraid of him, the cow! He can't sling me fair work, not the
best day ever he saw. He can't buck," he added, in tones of the deepest
contempt, "and he won't try when I've got a fair hold of him; only goes
at it underhanded. It's up to me to give h