CHAPTER XXVII

Finn appeared to lead the hunting party, but its real leader that evening was Warrigal, who had taken note on the previous day of the exact whereabouts of a big mother kangaroo. She now desired two things: a good supper and an opportunity of displaying before the three dingoes the fighting prowess of her lord. Black-tip had had his lesson, as various open wounds on his body then testified, but it was as well that his friends should see something of Finn's might for themselves, apart from the information they had clearly received. That was how Warrigal thought of it, and she knew a good deal about mother kangaroos as well as dingoes. She knew, for instance, that they were more feared by dingoes than the "old men" of their species, and that, even with the assistance of his two friends and herself, Black-tip would not have thought of attacking such prey while there were lesser creatures in plenty to be hunted.In due course Warrigal winded the mother kangaroo, and conveyed instant warning to Finn and the others by a sudden checking of her pace. Silent as wraiths between the shadowy tree-trunks then, Finn and the four dingoes stalked their prey, describing a considerable circle in order to approach from good cover. To Warrigal's keen disappointment, they found as they topped a little scrub-covered ridge that the mother kangaroo was feeding with a mob of seven, under the guidance of a big, red old-man. Then she conceived the bold plan of "cutting out" the mother kangaroo from the mob, and trusting to Finn to pull her down. This plan she conveyed to her fellow-hunters by means of that telepathic method of communication which is as yet little comprehended by men-folk. One quick look and thrust of her muzzle asked Finn to play his independent part, and another, flung with apparent carelessness across her right shoulder, bade the three dingoes follow her in the work of cutting out.It was a careful, silent stalk until the hunters were within ten yards of the quarry, and then with a terrifying yowl of triumph, a living rope of dingoes--four of them, nose to tail--was flung between the big mother kangaroo and the rest of the mob. The red old-man gave one panic-smitten look round his flock, and then they were off like the wind, in big twenty-foot bounds. But the mother could not bring herself to leap in their direction by reason of the yowling streak of snapping dingoes which had flung itself between them. She sprang off at a tangent and, as she made her seventh or eighth bound, terror filled her heart almost to bursting, as a roaring grey cloud swept upon her from her right quarter, and she felt the burning thrust of Finn's fangs in her neck. She sat up valiantly to fight for her life and the young life in her pouch, and her left hind-leg, with its chisel claws, sawed the air like a pump-handle. The dingoes knew that it would be death, for one or two of them, at all events, to face those out-thrust chisels. They surrounded the big beast in a snarling, yowling circle, and gnashed their white fangs together with a view to establishing the paralysis of terror. But they did not advance as yet. Finn slipped once, when he tried to take fresh hold, and in that instant the kangaroo slashed him deeply in the groin. But the wound was her own death warrant, for it filled the Wolfhound with fighting rage, and in another instant there was a broken neck between his mighty jaws and warm blood was running over the red-brown fur of the kangaroo, as her body fell sideways, with Finn upon it.The three other dingoes approached the kill with Warrigal, but she snarled at them, and a swift turn of Finn's head told them to beware. In the end Warrigal settled down to make a meal at one side of the kangaroo's hind-quarters, Finn took the other side, and the three dingoes were given their will of the fore part. There was more than enough for all, and though, when they left the kill to the lesser carnivora of that quarter, Finn carried a good meal with him between his jaws, it was not that he needed it for himself, but that he wished to place it in the den at Warrigal's disposal; a little attention which earned for him various marks of his mate's cordial approval. She was extremely pleased to have this evidence of Finn's forethoughtfulness as a bread-winner. Instinct told her the value and importance of this quality in a mate. And while she carefully dressed the wound in her lord's groin that night, Black-tip and his friends, with much chop-licking, spread abroad the story of their glorious hunting and of Finn's might as a killer. They vowed that a more terrible fighter and a greater master than Lupus, or than his even more terrible sire, whom few of them had seen, had come to Mount Desolation, and old dingoes shook their grey heads, feeling that they lived in strange and troublous times. But as for Lupus, he was ranging the trails at that moment on an empty stomach in savage quest of no other than this same stranger who had dared to defy him, and challenge his hitherto unquestioned mastery over the dingoes and lesser wild folk of that range.dingo and wolfhound entering caveCHAPTER XXVIISINGLE COMBATEven while he hunted, the irritating thought of the creature who had barked defiantly at him remained with Lupus, and was not softened by the fact that he missed two kills and failed to find other game. As a fact, he was in no real need of killing, for he had fed during the afternoon on the remains of the wallaby he had dragged up the hill early that morning. This was probably why he missed two kills; when empty it was rare indeed for him to miss.And, now, with irritation added to the anger of his recollection of the Wolfhound, he happened by pure chance upon the warm trail of Warrigal and the others who had accompanied Finn that night. This led him to the remains of the mother kangaroo, where he disturbed some lesser creatures who were supping at their ease. Lupus had no mind to leave bones with good fresh meat on them, and when he turned away again on Finn's trail, the unfamiliar scent of which raised the stiff bristles on his back till he looked like a hyæna, there was nothing much left for the ants or the flesh-eating rats and mice of the bush.Finn's home trail was still fresh, and Lupus followed it easily, growling to himself as he noted its friendly proximity to the trails he knew well, of Black-tip and Warrigal and the rest. Lupus told himself these dingoes needed a lesson, and should have it. He licked his chops, then, over a recollection of sundry whiffs and glimpses which had interested him of late in Warrigal, and as his nose dropped low over her trail on the near side of Finn's, it was borne in upon Lupus that it would be well for him to have a mate, and that Warrigal would be a pleasing occupant of that post. The stranger must be removed, once and for all. Lupus growled low in his throat. Black-tip and his friends must be cautioned severely. And then Warrigal should receive high honours; high honours and great favour. So Lupus pieced the matter out in his mind while loping heavily along Finn's trail; while among the starveling trees near the mountain's foot, Black-tip and his friends discussed the new-comer's prowess; while in the den on the first spur Finn lay dozing under the admiring eyes of his mate, who did not greatly care for sleep at night. Regarded as a fighting animal, the thing which really formed the keynote of Lupus's character was the fact that he had never met a creature he could not overcome. He had never tasted defeat, unless, conceivably, in his young days, from old Tasman. It did not occur to him that any creature could face him in serious combat and survive.Before Lupus touched the first loose stone of the trail leading up the hill to Warrigal's den, the people of the scrub below were all aware of his passage, and Black-tip, with seven other dingoes who did not happen to be away hunting, were following up the same trail, in fan-shaped formation, and at a respectful distance behind the master of the range. Half-way up the rugged side of the spur, his unbeaten insolence betrayed Lupus into what the wild folk considered an unsportsmanlike and stupid mistake. He paused for a moment, and bellowed forth a threatening and peremptory announcement of his coming in the form of a hoarse, grating howl of challenge which could have been heard a mile away. Then he proceeded on his upward way slowly, because he was fully fed, carelessly, because he had never known defeat, but with determination, because he was bent upon ridding the range of one who had flung defiance at him across the gully, and because, the more he thought of it, and recalled various small matters of recent experience and connected with the trail he then followed, the more ardent became his desire to possess Warrigal for a mate.Warrigal's friendly warning to Finn was not needed. In the same instant that Lupus's hoarse cry fell upon his ears he was awake and alert, and perfectly conscious as to the source of the cry. He knew that it came from the great wolf-dingo, whose passage he had challenged in the dawning of that day. He recognized the voice, and read clearly enough the meaning of the cry. He knew that this was a more considerable enemy than any he had faced as yet, and there was time in the moment of his waking for regret to flash through his mind that the challenge should have come now, while his whole body was scarred with unhealed wounds, and his left thigh was stiff from the punishing slash of the kangaroo's mailed foot. In the next moment he was outside the mouth of the den, his deep, fierce bark rending the silence of the night. The eight dingoes who followed in Lupus's trail heard the bark, and glanced one at another in meaning comment thereon. Never was a leader of men or beasts more cordially hated than Lupus. There was not a dingo who could call his leadership into question; even the young and daring members of the pack who pretended to scoff at the traditional awe in which Tasman was held, admitted the tyrannical mastership of Lupus as something ever-present and unavoidable; but that by no manner of means lessened their cordial hatred of the fierce half-breed, with his massive neck and shoulders that fangs seemed powerless to hurt, his jaws which were as swift as they were mighty to rend, and his claws which were as terrible as those of an old-man kangaroo, and more deadly in action because he had four sets of them. Black-tip experienced a generous sensation of sympathy and pity for Finn, and so did the two friends of his who had fed that night upon good fresh kangaroo flesh. But they, like all the others, were keen to see the coming fight, and--to act accordingly. The question of what was to become of Warrigal had occurred with interest to each one of them, for she was eminently desirable just then to all her kind.Fierce, savage, and justly feared though he was physically, Lupus was mentally a sluggish beast, and not over and above intelligent. In this he favoured his sire, who was slow-moving, sluggish, and, withal, as fierce as any weasel, and immensely powerful. When Lupus caught his first glimpse of the creature he had come to slay, he had a momentary thrill of uneasiness, but it was no more than momentary. Finn's towering form stood out clearly in the moonlight, as he stood, with tail curved upward and hackles erect, on the stone ledge outside the den. Lupus was scaling an extremely steep section of the trail at the moment, and, seen against the sky-line, Finn seemed monstrous. But, in justice, one should say that Lupus knew nothing of fear. It was only that for a moment, as he dragged his full-fed weight upward over the stones, the thought passed through his dull mind that this was surely a strange sort of dingo and extraordinarily tall. Finn was, as a matter of fact, ten inches taller than any other dingo on that range except Lupus, and four inches taller than he. Lupus was half as heavy again as any other dingo on the range, but, though he knew it not, Finn was twenty pounds heavier than he. But Lupus always had killed every animal that he had met in combat, and it did not for an instant occur to him that he might fail to kill this new-comer. And then there was Warrigal--he got her scent now as she emerged, crouching, from the den--he wanted Warrigal for his mate and he would have her.wolfhound standing above LupusFinn's towering form stood out clearly in the moonlight.Finn was standing in the middle of the flat ledge outside the den, and he neither advanced or retreated a single step as Lupus drew nearer. He simply bayed, at intervals, like a minute-gun, and scratched a little at the sandy rock beneath him with his right fore-foot. Once, Warrigal, snarling savagely, ranged up alongside him, but he sent her back to the mouth of the den with a peremptory growl which admitted of no argument. "This is my affair," his growl said. "Stay you back there in the doorway." And Warrigal, like the good spouse she was, retreated to the mouth of the den. Just then Lupus landed on the rock-ledge with a hectoring snarl which betrayed extravagance in a commodity he could ill afford to waste--breath. He plunged forward upon Finn with the clumsiness of a buffalo, and, for his instruction, received a slashing bite across one shoulder and a chest thrust which sent him rolling backwards off the ledge to the trail below, on his back.A dingo in Finn's place would have leaped upon him then, and, it may be, the fight would have ended suddenly; for even so redoubtable a foe as Lupus is of no very great account if he can be seized when on his back, with all four feet in the air. Black-tip and his companions in the rear drew in their breath sharply. They had never before seen Lupus on his back, and if he had stayed there another second he would have had their fangs to reckon with. But his reception by the stranger taught Lupus something, and the enemy that faced Finn for the second assault was a far more deadly one than the Lupus of a few moments earlier. Finn had scorned to pursue his fallen foe, but it would have been better for him if he had had less pride. The fan-shaped line of watching dingoes closed in a little as Lupus remounted the rocky ledge, with a blood-curdling snarl and an awe-inspiring exposure of his gleaming fangs. In another instant the two were at grips, and Finn realized that he was engaged in a fight for life, and a far more serious combat than any he had known before. The mere weight of impact with the wolf-dingo was sufficient to tell Finn this, and for the infinitesimal fraction of an instant he felt a sense of fatality and doom when his opponent's tremendously powerful jaws closed over the upper part of his right fore-leg.In the next instant Finn had torn one of Lupus's ears in half, and the terrible grip on his leg was relaxed. The Wolfhound sprang completely over the wolf-dingo, and took a slashing bite at the creature's haunches as he descended. Then they rose one at the other, like bears standing erect, and meeting jaw to jaw in mid-air, with a flashing and clashing of fangs which sent a thrill of excitement along the line of watchful dingoes, who realized now that they were looking on at the greatest spectacle of their lives. Lupus missed his grip that time, but so did Finn, being unable to withstand the violent sidelong wrench which snatched the enemy's neck from his jaws. And, as they came to earth again, Lupus secured firm hold upon Finn's leg in the same grip that he had obtained before. The grip was so vice-like and punishing as to flash panic into Finn's very soul, such as an animal knows when trapped by a man's device in unyielding steel. It was only by a violent twist of his neck that he could bring his jaws into action upon Lupus at all. But panic drove, and the long, immensely powerful neck was curved sufficiently. His jaws took the wolf-dingo at the back of the head, and one of his lower canines actually penetrated Lupus's lower jaw, causing him the most excruciating pain, so that he emitted a sound more like a hoarse scream than a growl, and snatched his head back swiftly from so terrible a punishment. That was the last time in this fight that Finn's legs were in serious danger. He had learned his lesson, and from that point onward, no matter what punishment his shoulders might receive, his hanging jaws, from which the blood dripped now, effectually guarded his legs.From this point, too, Lupus seemed to have centred all his desires upon the Wolfhound's throat; an underhold was what he sought, and in the pursuit of that he seemed prepared for, and capable of standing, any amount of punishment. The line of watching dingoes was still and silent as a line of statuary; it seemed they hardly drew breath, so intent was their preoccupation. Warrigal, too, stuck closely to her position, but she was not silent; a low, continuous snarl issued from her parted jaws, and the updrawn line of her lips showed white and glistening in the moonlight. She had been ordered to the rear by her mate, but the waiting dingoes on the trail below realized that if Finn were to be laid low, there would still be fighting to be done on that ledge of rock, and fighting of a deadly sort, at that, from which there would be no escaping.In one sense the Wolfhound's great height was against him now, since it placed Lupus in a more favourable position for securing the underhold upon which he was intent. But, as against that, it gave Finn readier access to the hold which in all his fights hitherto he had made fatal: the hold which a terrier takes upon a rat. But Lupus was no rat, and Finn had already found more than once that even his mighty jaws were not powerful enough to give killing pressure through all the mass of harsh bristles and thick rolling skin and flesh which protected Lupus's spinal cord at the neck. Three times during the later stages of the fight Lupus managed to ward off attack with a lightning stroke of one fore-foot, the claws of which scored deep into Finn's muzzle and neck, in one case opening a lesser vein, and sending the red blood rushing over his iron-grey coat. It seemed the long claws of the wolf-dingo were almost more deadly than his snapping jaws.The flow of his own blood seemed to madden Finn, and he made a plunge for his enemy's neck. Lupus sat erect, and, like a boxer, or a big bear, warded off the plunge with a violent, sweeping blow of his right paw. There was a quick flash of bloody, foam-flecked fangs, and the deadly paw was crushed between Finn's jaws. The pain of the crushing drew a screeching howl from Lupus, and in that same instant a powerful upward twist of Finn's neck threw him fairly on his back, snarling despairingly. One could not measure the fraction of time which elapsed between Finn's release of the crushed foot and his seizure of the throat--the deadly underhold. The wolf-dingo's bristles were thin there, and the skin comparatively soft. The fight was for life, and it was the whole of the Wolfhound's great strength that he put into his grip. Lupus's entire frame, every inch of it, writhed and twisted convulsively, like the body of a huge cat in torment. Finn's fangs sank half an inch deeper. The wolf-dingo's claws tore impotently at space, and his body squirmed almost into a ball. Finn's fangs sank half an inch deeper, and hot blood gushed between them. Lupus's great body hunched itself into an almost erect position from the shoulder-blades; he was standing on his shoulders. Then, as in a convulsion, one of his hind-legs was lowered in order that it might saw upward, scoring three deep furrows down the side of the Wolfhound's neck. Finn's fangs met in the red centre of his enemy's throat. There was a faint grunt, a final spasm of muscular activity, and then Finn drew back, and shook his dripping muzzle in the air. The fierce lord of Mount Desolation had entered upon the long sleep; his lordship was ended.Finn sank back upon his haunches, gasping, with a length of scarlet, foam-streaked tongue dangling from one side of his jaws. The watching line of dingoes advanced two paces. Warrigal, stepping forward to her mate's side, snarled warningly. But Finn pushed her gently with his lacerated muzzle, and, turning then to the watchful dingoes below, he emitted a little whinnying sound which said plainly: "You are welcome here!" Acting upon this, Black-tip moved slowly, deferentially forward, and climbed the flat ledge of rock, his bushy tail respectfully curled between his legs. Long and thoroughly he sniffed at the dead body of the terrible Lupus, and then he looked round at his still waiting companions, and whined as he walked back toward them. In twos and threes the dingoes followed Black-tip's lead, and climbed the flat rock to sniff their dead tyrant, and satisfy themselves that he had indeed entered upon the long sleep.  And the gesture in Finn's direction, with which they turned away from the rock, was as near to being a salutation, an obeisance, as anything that mortal dingo has ever achieved. And when the last of the band, reinforced now by half a dozen others who had been hastily summoned from their hunting near by, had paid his visit of inspection, Finn did a curious thing, which probably no dingo would ever have done. He moved slowly forward on his aching limbs, gripped the dead body firmly by the neck, and heaved it down from the flat rock to the trail below. Then he barked aloud, a message which said plainly--"Here is your old lord and tyrant! Take him away, and leave me now!"Black-tip and half a dozen of his comrades seized upon the carcase of the tyrant and dragged it away down the trail. I cannot say what was done with the remains of Lupus, the terrible son of Tasman; but Finn and Warrigal saw them no more, and for three days after that night of the slaying of Lupus, the bush-folk saw nothing of the Wolfhound. They saw Warrigal hunt alone each evening and, doubtless with thoughts of Finn in their minds, they respected her trail, and sought no speech of her, tempting though the sight of the Mount Desolation belle was to the young bucks of the pack. These young bloods, by the way, began to mutter now of the desirability of banding together to beard old Tasman in his den, and rid themselves of the shadow and tradition of tyranny, as well as its actuality. But the counsel of the elders strongly favoured delay. "Let us wait and see what the Great One will do when he is healed of his wounds," was what they thought, and, after their own fashion, said to the ambitious youngsters.dingo with pupsCHAPTER XXVIIIDOMESTIC LIFE IN THE MOUNTAIN DENIf a man succeeded in getting himself as much chopped about as Finn had been since the evening of his departure from the boundary-rider's gunyah and the severance of his connection with the world of men-folk, he would require weeks of careful nursing and doctoring before he could be said to have recovered. Fortunately for the people of the wild, who have neither nurses nor doctors, and whose ways of life do not permit of prolonged periods of rest, recovery from wounds is not so serious a business with them as it is with us.When the Wolfhound and his admiring mate between them had thoroughly licked and cleansed his numerous wounds, he stretched himself deliberately across the rear corner of the den, and there lay, sleeping soundly, until the next morning was well advanced. His body was lacerated by the wounds of three considerable fights: the fight with Black-tip and his friend; the sufficiently violent struggle with the mother-kangaroo; and lastly, the most serious fight of the Wolfhound's life, which had ended in the death of Lupus. But even the ten hours which Finn gave to sleep--he opened his eyes two or three times during that period, but did not move--brought a wonderful change in the aspect of these numerous wounds. They had advanced some distance in the direction of healing already. Now they were submitted to another thorough licking. Then Finn crept out into the sunlight beside the cave's mouth, and slept again, fitfully, till evening came. Then he sat up and licked all his wounds over again with painstaking and scrupulous care. They were healing nicely, and the healing process made Finn as stiff and sore as though he had had rheumatics in every joint in his body. So he crept painfully into the den again, and lay down to sleep once more, while Warrigal, with a friendly, wifely look at her lord, went out hunting.In this way three full days and nights passed, and on the fourth night Finn killed for himself--a small kill, and not far from home, but a kill, none the less, that required a certain agility, of which he already found himself quite capable. In the matter of strength and vital energy the Wolfhound had immense reserves to draw upon--greater reserves, really, than any of the wild folk possessed; for, in his youth, he had never known scarcity of food, or lack of warmth, or undue exposure; and, on the contrary, his system had been deliberately built up and fortified by the best sort of diet that the skill and science of man could devise. Finn could not have stood as much killing as a dingo, and still have lived; for the dingo is as hard an animal to kill as any that walks upon four legs. But, as against that, the Wolfhound could have stood a far greater living strain than any dingo. He had more to feed upon in himself. For actual toughness under murderous assault a dingo could have beaten Finn; yet in a test of staying power, an ordeal of long endurance, the Wolfhound would have won easily, by reason of his greater reserve of strength and vitality.From this point onward, Finn's wounds troubled him but very little, and in the healing air of that countryside they soon ceased to be apparent to the eye. An ordinary dingo would assuredly have been obliged to fight many fights before obtaining ascendancy over the Mount Desolation pack; but the mastery fell naturally to Finn without calling for any effort upon his part. He had slain the redoubtable old leader and tyrant of the pack. He had soundly trounced one of the strongest among the fully-grown young dingoes, Black-tip, and killed another in single-handed fight against two. Now, he administered condign punishment to two or three young bucks who ventured to attempt familiarity with Warrigal, but for fighting he was not called upon. Most of the pack had taken good measure of his prowess on the night of the slaying of Lupus, and that was enough for them, so far as mastery went. Further, the pack found Finn a generous leader, a kingly sort of friend; slow to anger, and merciful even in wrath; open as the day, and never, in any circumstances, tyrannical or aggressive. Then in the matter of his kills, Finn was generosity itself. As a hunter of big game he was more formidable than any three dingoes, and, withal, never rapacious. Three portions he would take from his kill; one to satisfy his own hunger, one for Warrigal to satisfy her hunger upon, and a third to be set aside and taken back to the den against the time when Warrigal should care to dispose of it. For the rest, be his kill what it might, Finn made the pack free of it.But no sort of temptation seemed strong enough to take the Wolfhound near to the haunts of men. It came to be understood that Finn would not touch sheep, and, reasoning it out amongst themselves, the rest of the pack accepted this as a prohibition meant to apply to all of them; so that Finn's mastership was an exceedingly good thing for the squatters and their flocks all through the Tinnaburra. But a full-grown kangaroo, no matter how heavy and strong in the leg, never seemed too much for Finn; and so, all dingoes liking big game better than small, it came about that every night saw the Mount Desolation dingoes hunting in pack formation at the heels of the great Wolfhound. They scorned the lesser creatures whose flesh had fed them hitherto, and expected to taste wallaby or kangaroo flesh every night. Finn thoroughly enjoyed the hunting, and did not care how many fed at his kill, so that his mate and he had ample.Once, the two youngest members of the pack, puppies quite new to the trail, were attacked and driven from the remains of a big kill the leader had made by an outlier, a strange dingo from some other range. The youngsters, bleeding and yelping, carried their woes to the scrub below the mountain, and within the hour Finn learned of it. Followed by Black-tip and one or two others of the more adventurous sort, he set out upon the trail of the outlier, now full fed, ran it down at the end of four or five miles' hard galloping, pinned the unfortunate creature to the earth and shook it into the long sleep, almost before they had come to a standstill together. This was true leadership the pack felt, a thing Lupus would never have done; something to be placed to the great Wolfhound's credit, and not forgotten. The mother of the whelps that were attacked, a big, light-coloured dingo, with sharp, prick ears, was particularly grateful to Finn.During this time a subtle change crept over Finn's appearance. In its details the change was so slight that the casual observer would have said it did not exist at all; yet, in truth, it was radical. It would be impossible to put this change precisely into words. An Irish Wolfhound is never sleek; at least, that is never a characteristic of the breed. Yet, as compared with the wild folk, every sort of animal which lives with men has a certain kind of sleekness or softness about it. It may be imagined that Finn did not have much of this when he escaped from the Southern Cross Circus. And in the period which followed that escape, although he had, in a sense, associated with a man and a man's dog, yet there had not been much in the life of the boundary-rider's camp to make for sleekness. Nevertheless, when Finn first met his mate, Warrigal, there had lingered about him still a kind of trimness, a suggestion of softness, far different, indeed, from that of the ordinary domesticated house-dog; but yet, in its own way, a sort of sleekness. Not a vestige of this remained now. Though he fed well and plentifully, and his life was not a hard one, since he only did that which pleased him, yet Finn had acquired now the hard, spare look of the creatures of the wild. In his alertness, in the blaze of his eyes, and the gleam of his fangs when hunting, in his extreme wariness and in the silence of his movements, and his deadly swiftness in attack, Finn had become one of his mate's own kindred. He differed from them in his great bulk, his essentially commanding appearance, in his dignity, and in a certain lordly generosity which always characterized him. He never disputed; he never indulged in threats or recrimination. He gave warning, when warning was needed; he punished, when punishment was needed; and he killed, if killing was desirable; making no sort of fuss about either process. Also, upon occasion, though not often, he barked. Otherwise, he was thoroughly of the wild kindred, and the unquestioned master of the Mount Desolation range.Some six or seven weeks after his arrival upon that range, Finn began to notice that Warrigal was changing in some way, and he did not like the change. It seemed to him that his mate no longer cared for him so much as she had cared. She spent more time in lying about in or near the den, and showed no eagerness to accompany him in his excursions, or to gambol with him, or even to lie with him on the warm, flat ledge outside the den. She seemed to prefer her own company, and Finn thought her temper was getting unaccountably short, too. However, life was very full of independent interest for the Wolfhound, and it was only in odd moments that he noticed these things. One night he was thoroughly surprised when Warrigal snarled at him in a surly manner, without any apparent cause at all, unless because he had touched her with his nose in a friendly way, by way of inviting her to accompany him, he being bound for the killing trail in quest of that night's supper.Finn walked out of the den, carrying his nose as high as he could, in view of the stoop necessary at the entrance, and feeling rather put out. A dingo in his place would have snarled back at Warrigal and, it may be, have wrangled about it for half an hour. Finn's dignity would not permit of this, but he was hurt, and decided that his spouse needed a lesson in courtesy. Since she responded so rudely to his invitation to join him in the hunt, she might go supperless for him; he would eat where he killed, and bring home nothing.Finn killed a half-grown kangaroo, a lusty red-coated youngster, that night, and he, with Black-tip and two or three others of the pack, fed full upon this before going down to the creek together to drink. Finn even spent an hour in trifling with a pair of sister dingoes who generally hunted together, and ranged the trails with Black-tip, in more or less sportive mood, till long after midnight. In the small hours the Wolfhound parted with Black-tip and the sportive sisters among the scrub at the mountain's foot, and wended his way alone to his den on the first spur, prepared, as many a male human has been in like case, to seek his rest without taking any notice of his mate, unless, perchance, he found her in a repentant mood. At the mouth of the cave he stooped low, as he was bound to do, to gain admittance, and in that moment he was brought to a halt by a long, angry, threatening snarl from within. Warrigal was very plainly telling her mate to remain outside, unless he was looking for trouble. This was unprecedented, and he was a very angry and outraged Wolfhound, who withdrew slowly with as much dignity as might be in walking backward with lowered head and shoulders."You will think better of this before morning, my dear!" was the sort of thought that Finn had in his mind, as he selected a comfortable sleeping-place in the shadow of a bush some half-dozen paces away from the mouth of the den. And then, being well fed and rather tired, he fell into a sound sleep until just after daybreak, when he woke to the sound of an unfamiliar small cry. With head slightly on one side and ears cocked sharply, Finn listened. The small cry was repeated. It certainly was not Warrigal's voice, though it came from the inside of the den. Also, there were a number of other small sounds that were strange--weak, quaint, gurgling sounds. Finn inclined his head a little farther to one side. Yes, his mate was licking something. Could she have been out and hunted alone? Even that would hardly account for the queer little, weak, strange voices within the den. The dingo people are not cats, and when they kill they kill outright. It was extremely puzzling and interesting, and Finn decided to investigate. After all, this was his own home and, however rude she may have been, Warrigal was his own mate, for whom he had fought and bled in the past; the mate who had lovingly dressed his wounds and shared his kills for nine weeks now--nine long, eventful weeks, which were more than equal to nine months in human folk's lives.Finn stooped low in the entrance and Warrigal snarled. But this time there was no note of aggression in her snarl. Indeed, to her mate, there was a hint of appeal in the salutation, which said clearly: "Be careful! Please be careful!" He advanced with extreme caution into the den, and saw his spouse lying full at length on her side, her bushy tail curled round to form a background for the smallest of four sleek puppies, of a yellowish grey colour, whom she was nursing assiduously. Moving with the utmost delicacy and care, Finn sniffed all round his mate, refraining from touching the puppies by way of humouring Warrigal, in whose throat a low growl sounded whenever his nose approached the little strangers. Then Finn stood and stared at the domestic group with hanging head and parted jaws, his tongue lolling, and his eyes saying plainly--"Well, well, well! Who'd have thought of this! They are really very nice little creatures, in their insignificant way, though I don't quite see why their presence should make you snarl at your own lawful mate."Seeing that her lord manifestly entertained no shadow of a hostile intention toward the family (the history of the male dingo is not altogether free from blame in the matter of infanticide), Warrigal raised her nose in friendly fashion to the Wolfhound and permitted him to lick her, which he did in the most affectionate manner, and with no further thought of her previous harshness. Then she gave a little whine and glanced round the walls of the den. Finn barked quietly, bidding his mate rest assured that all would be well, and ten minutes later he was descending upon a rabbit-earth that he knew of, a moving shadow of death among young bunnies assembled to welcome the dewy warmth of the new day. On the way home he dropped his rabbit to stalk a half-grown bandicoot; and finally, after less than an hour's absence, he returned to the den carrying a rabbit and a bandicoot, so that Warrigal might have variety in her breakfast. Being parched with thirst, Warrigal gratefully accepted both kills, and without actually eating either drew some sustenance from both. Then with an anxious look at the family she nudged Finn out of the den with her nose, and, leaving him outside on the ledge, turned and raced for the creek, like an arrow from a bow. She was back again inside of two minutes with bright drops clinging to her fur. Finn had sat patiently beside the mouth of the den waiting, and for this Warrigal gave him a grateful glance of appreciation before gliding into her puppies, who already were beginning to whimper for warmth and nourishment.Finn took very naturally to the part of father and bread-winner. He lounged about the mouth of the den through the day, creeping in occasionally to see how things went with his mate, and returning then to keep guard outside. She allowed him now to touch the odd little creatures who were his children; but they did not like the feeling of his tongue, and wriggled away from it in their blind, helpless way. "There, there!" said Finn low down in his throat, and withdrew, marvelling afresh at the mysteries of life and the cleverness of femininity. As for Warrigal, she seemed absurdly happy and proud about it all now, and assumed considerable airs of importance. She took her food in brief snatches a dozen times during the day, and when Finn left her in the early night for the trails, she looked at him in a meaning way which said plainly that she attached importance to the matter of food supply, though she could not take to the trails herself, being otherwise and fully occupied. Finn licked her muzzle reassuringly and went out.The pack had to forage for itself that night, for when Finn made his kill--a fat rock wallaby--he announced in the most unmistakable manner that there was nothing to spare for followers that night, and marched off mountain-wards, trailing the whole heavy kill over his right shoulder. In the course of the night it became known to all the wild people of that range that the mate of the leader of the pack had other mouths than her own to feed, and that for the time Finn would do all the hunting for the den on the first spur.Tasman carrying off dead pupCHAPTER XXIXTRAGEDY IN THE MOUNTAIN DENWhen Warrigal's puppies were born, Finn, their father, had been in the Tinnaburra for nearly five months, though he had only known the Mount Desolation range for some nine or ten weeks. During the whole of that five months of late winter and spring, not one single drop of rain had fallen in the Tinnaburra, and with the coming of Warrigal's children there came also the approach of summer. Finn, for his part, gave no thought to this question of weather, because he had quite forgotten that there was such a thing as rain. It had not rained while he was in the city with the Master, after landing in Australia. The little that fell during the period of his imprisonment with the Southern Cross Circus had never touched the caged Giant Wolf, and he had entirely forgotten what falling rain felt like. He had slept on the earth ever since his escape from the circus, and he accepted its dryness as a natural and agreeable fact.But both Finn and Warrigal were rather annoyed when, just as the puppies began to open their eyes and become a little troublesome and curious, the creek at the foot of Mount Desolation disappeared through its shingly bed and was seen no more. This meant a tramp of three and a half miles to the nearest drinking-place, a serious matter for a nursing mother, whose tongue seemed always to be lolling thirstily from the side of her mouth. Warrigal would make the journey to the drinking-place as swiftly as she could, and drink till she could drink no more. Then during the return journey concern for her children would set the pace for her, and she would arrive at the den panting and gasping, and more thirsty than when she left it; for the weather was already hot, the air singularly dry, and Warrigal herself in no condition for fast travelling, with her heavy dugs and body, both amply fed and amply drawn upon in her capacity of nurse-mother. Finn did his part well and thoroughly, and there was no lack of good fresh meat in the den on the first spur, but he could not carry water. Warrigal tried to slake her mother-thirst by means of an extra heavy meat diet, but though she knew it not, this only aggravated her continual desire for water, which was Nature's demand for assistance in fitting her to discharge adequately her duty to her children. And so, during all this time, Finn's mate found herself obliged to run over hard, parched ground at least fourteen miles a day, and often twenty-one, when it would have suited her, and her puppies also, a good deal better to have confined her exercise to strolls in the neighbourhood of the den.One result of this was that Warrigal's children began to eat meat at an earlier stage of their existence than would have been the case if water had been plentiful and near at hand for their mother. There never were more carnivorous little creatures than these puppies. At first, of course, their mother saw to it that the meat they consumed was of a ready-masticated and even a half-digested sort; but in an astonishingly short while they began to rend and tear raw flesh for themselves, under the mother's watchful eye; and from that time on Finn was a very busy hunter. It was probably because of this unceasing demand for fresh meat in the den on the first spur that the leader of the Mount Desolation pack was the first member of it to notice that hunting was becoming increasingly difficult in that region. Finn's quest was necessarily for large meat; and at about this time he was discovering to his cost that he had to go farther and farther afield to find it. It was well enough for the bachelors and spinsters of the pack, the free-lances of that clan. The district was still rich in its supply of the lesser marsupials, rats, mice, and the like; not to mention all manner of grubs, and insects, and creeping things, among which it was easy for a single dingo to satisfy his appetite. But a giant Wolfhound, with a very hungry mate and four ravening little pups, all waiting eagerly upon his hunting, was quite differently situated.Finn's hunting took him one evening far enough south and by east to bring him within half a mile of the boundary-rider's encampment in which he had lived with Jess. Here he happened upon Koala, who was softly grumbling to himself while waddling from one tree to another. Koala, of course, began the usual plaint about his poverty and inoffensiveness. This was mechanical with him, and he must have known very well that Finn would not hurt him. As a matter of fact, the Wolfhound lay down beside the native bear, and they had quite a long confab upon bush affairs, during which Finn referred in some way to the growing scarcity of game in that district, and Koala mournfully added that gum-leaves themselves were by no means what they had been. But, for all his foolishness and helplessness, Koala had lived a very long time, and actually was very well versed in bush-lore, though he liked to describe himself as the most forlorn and helpless of beasts. He knew all about the scarceness of big game and its causes, just as he knew all about the dryness and want of sap in his own vegetable food; and now, by means of the methods of communication of which we know nothing, he managed to convey some of his knowledge to Finn, so that when they separated, Finn connected the drying up of the Mount Desolation creek with the hardness of his recent hunting, and the heat and absence of rain with both. The ordinary season for rain had passed now, and the full length of Australian summer was before them; a fact of which the learned Koala said nothing, probably because he did not know it, or, possibly, because he did not greatly care, being a total abstainer from drink himself.It was at about this time that Warrigal herself returned to the trails. Finn had in no sense failed her as bread-winner, but, game being scarce, and her children still too young to do any foraging for themselves worth talking about, Warrigal felt that she owed it to her mate to share his burdens with him. The pups had already reached the stage of grovelling about outside the den, and pursuing the few live things of the insect type who affected that stony spot. One of them, indeed, had already learned a lesson that would last him for the rest of his life, regarding the habits, customs, and general undesirability of the bull-dog ant as play-mate or prey.wolfhound carrying wallaby up mountainHe slung the wallaby over his shoulder and set out for the mountain.It happened, about a week after his meeting with Koala, that Finn had a stroke of luck in the matter of stumbling upon a badly wounded wallaby within a couple of miles of the den. In some way this unfortunate creature had managed to get its right hind-leg caught in a dingo-trap, to which a heavy clog of wood was attached. In the course of time the wallaby would have died very miserably, and already it had begun to lose flesh. But Finn brought a mercifully sudden death to the crippled creature, and then proceeded to tear in sunder the limb which held the trap. Having accomplished this, he slung the wallaby over his shoulder and set out for the mountain, meaning to allow the family to feast upon this early kill, while he took a further look round upon the trails.Just as Finn, heavily laden, scaled the rocky ledge immediately below the one which flanked the entrance of the den, a shrill cry of mortal anguish fell upon his ears, and thrilled him to the very marrow. The cry came from the inside of the den above him, and he knew it for the cry of one of his children in extremity. That gave Finn the most piercing thrill of paternity he had felt up till this time. He dropped his kill, and leaped with one mighty bound clear over two boulders and a bare stretch of track to the ledge outside the den. And, in the moment of his leap, a figure emerged from the mouth of the den bearing between its uncovered, yellow tusks the body of Warrigal's last-born son, limp and bleeding. This figure which faced Finn now in the moonlight was the most terribly ugly one that the countryside could have produced. Gaunt beyond description, ragged, grey, bereft of hair in many places, aged and desperate, old Tasman, the Zebra-Wolf, had his tusks sunk in warm, juicy flesh for the first time in three months, and was prepared to pay for the privilege with the remains of his life if need be. Skin, bone, glittering eyes, and savage, despairing ferocity; that was all there was left of Tasman, three months after the death of his son Lupus. He had lived so long almost entirely upon insects, grubs, scraps of carrion dropped by birds, and the like. Desperate hunger, and the smell of young animal life, and of the proceeds of daily kills, had drawn him to the den on the first spur that night; and now, now he was face to face with the master of the range, and the outraged father of Warrigal's pups.The gaunt old wolf dropped his prey on the instant, realizing clearly that his life was at stake. In his day he had slain many dingoes, but that was in the distant past, and this iron-grey monster which roared at him now was different from the dingoes Tasman had known. With massive, bony skull held low, and saliva dripping from his short, powerful jaws, the old wolf sent forth his most terrible snarl of challenge and defiance; the cry which had been used in bygone years to paralyse his victims into a condition which made them easy prey for his tearing claws and lance-like tusks. But the horrible sound was powerless so far as Finn was concerned, and the Wolfhound gathered himself together now for the administration of punishment which should be as swift as it would be terrible and final. But in that moment he heard a scattering of loose stones behind him which delayed his spring to allow time for a flying glance over his right shoulder; and that glance changed his whole tactics in the matter of the attack upon Tasman. For, even as Finn glanced, an outstretched furry mass flew across his range of vision, and landed like a projectile upon the gaunt old wolf's neck. Warrigal also had returned; she also had dropped her kill in the trail below the den, and now Tasman had to deal with the dauntless fury of a bereaved mother. Warrigal was a whirlwind of rage; a revelation to Finn of the fighting force which had given her her unquestioned standing in the pack before ever she set eyes on the Wolfhound.Tasman had his back against the side of the den's mouth now, and he flung Warrigal from him, with a slash of his jaws and a twist of his still powerful neck. But, in the next moment, the under-side of that scrawny neck was between the mightiest jaws in the Tinnaburra, and, even as the life blood of old Tasman flowed out between Finn's white fangs, the body of him was being literally torn in sunder by the furiously busy teeth and claws of Warrigal. It was little she cared for the thrusts of his hind-claws in the last muscular contortions which sent his legs tearing at her neck. She was possessed of the mother-madness, and so she fought like a wild cat at bay. Old Tasman was not just killed; he was dispersed, scattered, dissolved almost into the elements from which he sprang; he was translated within a few minutes into shapeless carrion.And then, gasping, bleeding, panting, her jaws streaming, Warrigal wheeled about with a savage, moaning cry, and shot forward into the den. One son she had seen dead upon the ledge without. Two daughters she found dead within, and, while she licked at his lacerated little body, the lingering life ebbed out finally from the other male pup, her sole remaining son. But Warrigal licked the still little form for almost an hour, though it lived for no more than three or four minutes after she entered the den.Then Warrigal went outside to where Finn sat, alternately licking the one deep wound the old wolf had scored in his chest, and looking out dismally across the Tinnaburra. Warrigal sat down on her haunches about two yards from Finn, and, having pointed her muzzle at the moon, where it sailed serenely above them in a flawless dark blue sky, she began to pour out upon the night the sound of the long, hoarse dingo howl of mourning. Finn listened for some minutes without moving. By that time the melancholy of it all had entered fairly into his soul, and he, too, lifted up his head and delivered himself of the Irish Wolfhound howl, which carries farther than the dingo howl, and is more purely mournful than any other canine cry. Also, it has more volume than any other; there is something uncanny and supernatural about its piercing melancholy. So the sire and the dam sat and howled at the stars in their unclouded courses. And if you were to visit that den to-day, on the first south-eastern spur of Mount Desolation, you would probably find the skeletons of three of Finn's and Warrigal's children; for the Wolfhound and his mate never entered their old home again.wolfhound and dingoes stalking kangaroosCHAPTER XXXTHE EXODUSIt was rather an odd thing, this fact that neither Finn or his mate ever again entered the lair which had been such a happy home for them since the day of their first meeting. But so it was, and one is bound to assume, I think, that the reason of it was grief for the loss of their children. In the early dawning of a blistering hot day they paced slowly down the hill and into the rocky strip of scrub which divided Mount Desolation from the bush itself. Hereabouts it was that the rest of the pack lived; and, though Finn and Warrigal conveyed no definite news of what had happened during the night, the news must have spread somehow, because before the sun had properly risen every single member of the pack had climbed the spur and investigated for himself or herself the scattered carrion which had been Tasman. Whether they looked into the den or not, as well, I do not know; but I should say that some of the adventurous youngsters did, while their elders and parents probably refrained.These same elders and parents were beginning to feel considerable distress over the absence of rain, the scarcity of water, and the poor results which attended their hunting. The wild folk of the Australian bush are, upon the whole, less dependent upon water than the animals of most countries, and such people as Koala, the native bear, seem to get along quite happily without ever drinking anything at all. Even kangaroos and wallabies can go for a long while without drinking, but there is a limit to the endurance of most of the bush animals in the matter of thirst, while, as for the dingoes, they want their water every day as much as they need their food. There was no longer any disguising the fact that a very large number of the wild folk, in whom Finn and Warrigal and the rest of the pack were interested, had recently migrated in quest of homes that should be better supplied with water than the Tinnaburra or the Mount Desolation range. It was not that the pack felt the absence of these folk as companions, but as food. They were also beginning to feel keenly the burnt-up dryness of that whole countryside and the extreme heat of the season.Even Finn's prowess as a hunter and a killer was of no avail in the absence of game to hunt, and during the few days which he and Warrigal spent among the scrub at the mountain's foot, after leaving their den, the Wolfhound sometimes travelled from thirty to forty miles without a single kill, being reduced then, like the rest of the pack, to eat rabbit flesh, and mice, and grubs. Already some of the younger members of the pack had begun to prey upon the flocks of squatters in the Tinnaburra, and this had brought speedy retribution in the shape of one young female of their kindred shot through the head, and two promising males trapped and slain, so that the pack now consisted of no more than fourteen adults and six whelps, who were hardly capable as yet of fending for themselves. Men with guns had actually been seen within a mile of Mount Desolation itself; and, owing to the attacks upon their bark of half-starved small fry, the trees of the bush were dying by hundreds, and thereby opening up in the most uncomfortable manner ranges which had previously been excellent hunting-grounds. The report about the men-folk with guns was most disturbing to Finn, and he was conscious, in sitting down, of a degree of boniness about his haunches such as he had never known since the horrible period of his captivity in the circus. A Wolfhound whose fighting weight is a hundred and fifty pounds requires a good deal more food than a dingo, whose weight rarely exceeds half that amount. Grubs and mice were not of much use to Finn; and when he drank, his long tongue had been wont to scoop up more than twice the amount of water which had served to satisfy any other member of the pack.The growing restlessness and discontent which had been mastering the Mount Desolation pack for weeks now received an immense addition, so far as Finn and Warrigal were concerned, in the events which led them to forsake their den on the first spur. It culminated, in Finn's eyes, in the actual passage through the scrub beside the mountain's foot of a party of half a dozen mounted men with guns and dogs. This occurred in the late afternoon of a scorching hot day, when most of the pack were sleeping; and if the dogs of the men-folk had not been incredibly stupid in the matter of sticking closely to the trail, and making no attempt to range the scrub on either side of it, the dingoes would actually have been hunted like hares, and some of them, no doubt, would have been killed. As it was, Finn felt as strongly, and perhaps more strongly than any of the elders of the pack, that this event had rendered the range finally uninhabitable. His nostrils twitched and wrinkled for hours after the men had gone; and, as soon as darkness fell, he rose in a determined manner, thrust his muzzle meaningly against Warrigal's neck and took to the open trail. With extraordinary unanimity the other members of the pack began to gather behind Finn. It seemed to be clearly understood that this was no ordinary hunting expedition, and the two mothers of the pack, with their half-grown whelps, whined plaintively as they gathered their small families about them for journeying. The whelps, always eager for a new move of any kind, gambolled joyously around their parents, but the mothers snarled at them, bidding them go soberly, lest weariness and worse should overtake them before their time.One very old dog, who had always looked with grudging sullenness upon the great Wolfhound and his doings, refused point-blank to be a party to the exodus, and croakingly warned the others against following a new-comer and an outlier such as Finn. He gave them to understand that he had been born in the shadow of Mount Desolation, like his sire and dam before him, and that he would live alone rather than forsake that range at the bidding of a great grey foreigner. The pack paid little heed to the old dingo, and he sat erect on his haunches beside the trail, watching them file along the flank of the mountain. When they were nearly a mile away, the old dingo began to howl dismally; and when Finn made his first kill, seven miles to the north-west of Mount Desolation, old Tufter--he had a sort of mop at the end of a rather scraggy tail--was on hand, and yowling eagerly for scraps. The kill was a half-starved brush-tailed wallaby, and nobody got much out of it but Warrigal and Finn, both of whom growled fiercely while they ate, in a manner which said plainly that they were not entertaining that night, at all events before the edge had been taken off their own appetites. So old Tufter got nothing more nutritious than a few scraps of scrubby fur.The poor old fellow took great pains to communicate his own discomfort and mistrust to all the other members of the pack, except Finn and Warrigal, whom he ignored, and pointed out with vehemence that they were heading in the wrong direction. He was right in a way, for they certainly were leaving the better country behind them, in travelling to the north-west. South and east of Mount Desolation lay the fatter and comparatively well-watered lands. Even Finn knew this, of course; but that way also lay the habitations of men, and the Wolfhound's face was set firmly away from men and all their works. Men had tortured him in a cage, the memory of which their hot irons had burned right into his very soul. And, after that, men, in the person of a certain sulky boundary-rider, had driven him out from their neighbourhood with burning faggots, with curses, and with execrations. All this had been brought vaguely to Finn's mind by the passage through the scrub that day of horses and men, and the north-west trail was the only possible trail for him because of that.From this point on, the pack moved slowly in scattered formation, each individual member hunting as he went along, with nose to earth and eyes a-glitter for possible prey of any kind, from a grub to an old-man kangaroo. Towards morning, when they were a good thirty miles distant from Mount Desolation, they topped a ridge, upon the farther slope of which a small mob of nine kangaroos were browsing among the scrub. Finn was after them like a shot, and Warrigal was at his heels, the rest of the pack streaming behind in a ragged line, the tail of which was formed by old Tufter and the whelps. There was a stiff chase of between three and four miles, and only five dingoes were within sight when Finn pinned the rearmost kangaroo by the neck, and Warrigal darted in cautiously upon one of its flanks. In an attack of this kind two things about Finn made his onslaught most deadly: his great weight, and the length and power of his massive jaws.Even Tufter got a good meal from this kill, for the kangaroo was a big fellow of well over five feet from nose to haunch, without mention of his huge muscular tail, the meaty root of which kept the whelps busy for hours afterwards. The whole pack fed full, and in the neighbourhood of that range they scattered and slept; for in the gully on the other side of it there was a little muddy water, and round about there was pleasant cover which had sheltered the kangaroos for a week or more. Old Tufter forbore to growl, and the young members of the pack were enthusiastic regarding the advantages of migration in the trail of such a hunter as Finn. They did not know that, in a leisurely way, the mob of kangaroos they had flushed were also migrating, as the result of drought--but in the opposite direction to that chosen by Finn, who was heading now towards the part of the country which the kangaroos had forsaken as being burned and eaten bare, and devoid even of such food as bark.When the dingoes had finished with the little chain of small pools in the gully on the afternoon of that day, there was little left but mud; one might have called it a creek bed, but it certainly was no longer a creek. However, that night's travel brought fairly good hunting, and always among game moving in the opposite direction to that taken by the pack. Finn and Warrigal and Black-tip shared a wallaby between them, and spared some portions of it for the whelps; though Warrigal snarled angrily when the young things came near her; the memory of her own family being still fresh within her. And the rest of the pack fared quite tolerably well, sharing between them a kangaroo-rat, two bandicoots, a wallaby-hare, and quite a considerable number of marsupial mice, besides about half of a big carpet-snake which Finn killed.For a week now the little pack travelled on in a north-westerly direction, and every day old Tufter growled a little more bitterly and with a little better cause. Game was certainly becoming lamentably scarce, and the country traversed was one which did not at all commend itself to dingoes, being arid, shadeless, and dry as a bleached bone. It was the sort of country which, in Australia, is frequently covered by beautiful flowers and scrub during the winter, though perfectly bare in the summer. But the winter which had preceded this summer had been too dry to bring any growth here, so that it had not even the remains of a previous season's vegetation, and offered no trace of cover. A long and most exhausting chase did enable Finn to pull down a solitary emu, and of this the pack left nothing but beak and feathers when they passed on, still hungry, in quest of other game.But for all the shortness of food, which was thinning the flesh over Finn's haunches now, it was another cause which led him to swerve from the north-westerly course in a south-westerly direction. He paid no particular heed to old Tufter's continuous growls about the direction taken by the pack under his leadership; but what he was forced to notice was the fact that for two whole days no water had been seen, and the lolling tongues of the young whelps were in consequence so swollen that they could not close their jaws. Throughout one weary night, the pack loped along in dogged silence in a south-westerly direction, their eyes blazing in the keen look out for game; dry, dust-encrusted foam caked upon their lips, and fierce anxiety in the heart of every one of them.Then, in the brazen dawning of a day in which the sun seemed to thrust out great heat upon the baked earth even before it appeared above the horizon, the pack checked suddenly as Black-tip drew Finn's attention to a pair of Native Companions seen in the act of floating down to earth from the lower limbs of a shrivelled red-gum tree. The bigger of these two great cranes had a stature of something over five feet, and his fine blue-grey plumage covered an amount of flesh which would have made a meal for quite a number of dingoes. Yet it was not so much as food, but rather as a guide and indication, that Black-tip regarded the cranes. He knew that they would not be very far from water. The way in which the pack melted into cover in the dim, misty light of the coming day was very remarkable. For several miles now they had been travelling through a country less arid than the plains they had traversed during the previous two days, and now, while seeming to disappear into the earth itself--even as Echidna actually could and would, though the earth were baked hard--the members of the pack actually found cover by slinking low amongst a sort of wiry scrub growth with which the ground hereabouts was dotted.It was thus that Finn saw for the first time the strange dance of the Native Companion. To and fro, and up and down beneath their scraggy gum-tree, the two great cranes footed it in a sort of grotesque minuet. There was a strange sort of angularity about all their movements, but, withal, a certain grace, bizarre and notable. And while the Native Companions solemnly paced through what was really a dance of death for them, Finn and Black-tip and Warrigal stalked them as imperceptibly as shadows lengthen across a lawn in evening time. The three hunters advanced through the scrub like snakes moving in their sleep, and never a leaf or twig made comment on their passage, as they slithered down the morning breeze, inch by inch, apparently a part of the shadowy earth itself. The prancing dance of the Native Companions--these birds mate for life and are deeply and devotedly attached one to another--was drawing to its close, when death came to them both like a bolt from the heavens; such a death as one would have chosen for them, since it left no time for fear or mourning, or grief at separation. Their necks were torn in sunder before they realized that they had been attacked, and within the minute their graceful feathered bodies shared the same fate, as the rest of the pack joined Finn and Warrigal and Black-tip. There was less of lordly generosity about Finn's feeding upon this occasion than he had always shown before. The great Wolfhound realized perhaps that his frame demanded more of nutriment than was necessary for the support of a dingo, and he ate with savage swiftness, growling angrily when any other muzzle than Warrigal's approached his own too nearly.Less than half an hour later the pack was scrambling and sliding down the high banks of a river-bed, in the centre of which, surrounded upon both sides by a quarter of a mile and more of shingle and hard-baked mud, there was still a disconnected chain of small, yellow pools of water. The water was of something like the consistency of pea-soup, but no spring-fed mountain-rill ever tasted sweeter or more grateful to a thirsty traveller than this muddy fluid to the palates of the Mount Desolation pack. Finn chose a good-sized pool, and Warrigal tackled it with him; but when two youngsters of the pack ventured to approach the other side of that pool, Warrigal snarled at them so fiercely, backed by a low, gurgling growl from Finn, that the two slunk off, and tackled a lesser pool by themselves.wolfhound and dingoes sliding down a bankScrambling and sliding down the high banks of a river-bed.Where the pack drank they rested. As yet their great thirst was close to them, and the neighbourhood of water seemed too good to leave. But, in such matters, the memory of the wild folk is apt to be short. The banks of the river-bed ran due east and west here; and, though the pack gave no thought to the question, it was a matter of some importance to each one of them whether they should eventually leave those banks to the northward or to the southward; a matter of importance by reason of the difference in the country to the northward and to the southward. But it was chance at last that decided the question for them. They drank many times during the day, and towards nightfall a small mob of kangaroos was sighted to the northward, and that led the pack to head northward, a little westerly, from the river-bank that night.wolfhound and dingo drinking from riverbed

Finn appeared to lead the hunting party, but its real leader that evening was Warrigal, who had taken note on the previous day of the exact whereabouts of a big mother kangaroo. She now desired two things: a good supper and an opportunity of displaying before the three dingoes the fighting prowess of her lord. Black-tip had had his lesson, as various open wounds on his body then testified, but it was as well that his friends should see something of Finn's might for themselves, apart from the information they had clearly received. That was how Warrigal thought of it, and she knew a good deal about mother kangaroos as well as dingoes. She knew, for instance, that they were more feared by dingoes than the "old men" of their species, and that, even with the assistance of his two friends and herself, Black-tip would not have thought of attacking such prey while there were lesser creatures in plenty to be hunted.

In due course Warrigal winded the mother kangaroo, and conveyed instant warning to Finn and the others by a sudden checking of her pace. Silent as wraiths between the shadowy tree-trunks then, Finn and the four dingoes stalked their prey, describing a considerable circle in order to approach from good cover. To Warrigal's keen disappointment, they found as they topped a little scrub-covered ridge that the mother kangaroo was feeding with a mob of seven, under the guidance of a big, red old-man. Then she conceived the bold plan of "cutting out" the mother kangaroo from the mob, and trusting to Finn to pull her down. This plan she conveyed to her fellow-hunters by means of that telepathic method of communication which is as yet little comprehended by men-folk. One quick look and thrust of her muzzle asked Finn to play his independent part, and another, flung with apparent carelessness across her right shoulder, bade the three dingoes follow her in the work of cutting out.

It was a careful, silent stalk until the hunters were within ten yards of the quarry, and then with a terrifying yowl of triumph, a living rope of dingoes--four of them, nose to tail--was flung between the big mother kangaroo and the rest of the mob. The red old-man gave one panic-smitten look round his flock, and then they were off like the wind, in big twenty-foot bounds. But the mother could not bring herself to leap in their direction by reason of the yowling streak of snapping dingoes which had flung itself between them. She sprang off at a tangent and, as she made her seventh or eighth bound, terror filled her heart almost to bursting, as a roaring grey cloud swept upon her from her right quarter, and she felt the burning thrust of Finn's fangs in her neck. She sat up valiantly to fight for her life and the young life in her pouch, and her left hind-leg, with its chisel claws, sawed the air like a pump-handle. The dingoes knew that it would be death, for one or two of them, at all events, to face those out-thrust chisels. They surrounded the big beast in a snarling, yowling circle, and gnashed their white fangs together with a view to establishing the paralysis of terror. But they did not advance as yet. Finn slipped once, when he tried to take fresh hold, and in that instant the kangaroo slashed him deeply in the groin. But the wound was her own death warrant, for it filled the Wolfhound with fighting rage, and in another instant there was a broken neck between his mighty jaws and warm blood was running over the red-brown fur of the kangaroo, as her body fell sideways, with Finn upon it.

The three other dingoes approached the kill with Warrigal, but she snarled at them, and a swift turn of Finn's head told them to beware. In the end Warrigal settled down to make a meal at one side of the kangaroo's hind-quarters, Finn took the other side, and the three dingoes were given their will of the fore part. There was more than enough for all, and though, when they left the kill to the lesser carnivora of that quarter, Finn carried a good meal with him between his jaws, it was not that he needed it for himself, but that he wished to place it in the den at Warrigal's disposal; a little attention which earned for him various marks of his mate's cordial approval. She was extremely pleased to have this evidence of Finn's forethoughtfulness as a bread-winner. Instinct told her the value and importance of this quality in a mate. And while she carefully dressed the wound in her lord's groin that night, Black-tip and his friends, with much chop-licking, spread abroad the story of their glorious hunting and of Finn's might as a killer. They vowed that a more terrible fighter and a greater master than Lupus, or than his even more terrible sire, whom few of them had seen, had come to Mount Desolation, and old dingoes shook their grey heads, feeling that they lived in strange and troublous times. But as for Lupus, he was ranging the trails at that moment on an empty stomach in savage quest of no other than this same stranger who had dared to defy him, and challenge his hitherto unquestioned mastery over the dingoes and lesser wild folk of that range.

dingo and wolfhound entering cave

SINGLE COMBAT

Even while he hunted, the irritating thought of the creature who had barked defiantly at him remained with Lupus, and was not softened by the fact that he missed two kills and failed to find other game. As a fact, he was in no real need of killing, for he had fed during the afternoon on the remains of the wallaby he had dragged up the hill early that morning. This was probably why he missed two kills; when empty it was rare indeed for him to miss.

And, now, with irritation added to the anger of his recollection of the Wolfhound, he happened by pure chance upon the warm trail of Warrigal and the others who had accompanied Finn that night. This led him to the remains of the mother kangaroo, where he disturbed some lesser creatures who were supping at their ease. Lupus had no mind to leave bones with good fresh meat on them, and when he turned away again on Finn's trail, the unfamiliar scent of which raised the stiff bristles on his back till he looked like a hyæna, there was nothing much left for the ants or the flesh-eating rats and mice of the bush.

Finn's home trail was still fresh, and Lupus followed it easily, growling to himself as he noted its friendly proximity to the trails he knew well, of Black-tip and Warrigal and the rest. Lupus told himself these dingoes needed a lesson, and should have it. He licked his chops, then, over a recollection of sundry whiffs and glimpses which had interested him of late in Warrigal, and as his nose dropped low over her trail on the near side of Finn's, it was borne in upon Lupus that it would be well for him to have a mate, and that Warrigal would be a pleasing occupant of that post. The stranger must be removed, once and for all. Lupus growled low in his throat. Black-tip and his friends must be cautioned severely. And then Warrigal should receive high honours; high honours and great favour. So Lupus pieced the matter out in his mind while loping heavily along Finn's trail; while among the starveling trees near the mountain's foot, Black-tip and his friends discussed the new-comer's prowess; while in the den on the first spur Finn lay dozing under the admiring eyes of his mate, who did not greatly care for sleep at night. Regarded as a fighting animal, the thing which really formed the keynote of Lupus's character was the fact that he had never met a creature he could not overcome. He had never tasted defeat, unless, conceivably, in his young days, from old Tasman. It did not occur to him that any creature could face him in serious combat and survive.

Before Lupus touched the first loose stone of the trail leading up the hill to Warrigal's den, the people of the scrub below were all aware of his passage, and Black-tip, with seven other dingoes who did not happen to be away hunting, were following up the same trail, in fan-shaped formation, and at a respectful distance behind the master of the range. Half-way up the rugged side of the spur, his unbeaten insolence betrayed Lupus into what the wild folk considered an unsportsmanlike and stupid mistake. He paused for a moment, and bellowed forth a threatening and peremptory announcement of his coming in the form of a hoarse, grating howl of challenge which could have been heard a mile away. Then he proceeded on his upward way slowly, because he was fully fed, carelessly, because he had never known defeat, but with determination, because he was bent upon ridding the range of one who had flung defiance at him across the gully, and because, the more he thought of it, and recalled various small matters of recent experience and connected with the trail he then followed, the more ardent became his desire to possess Warrigal for a mate.

Warrigal's friendly warning to Finn was not needed. In the same instant that Lupus's hoarse cry fell upon his ears he was awake and alert, and perfectly conscious as to the source of the cry. He knew that it came from the great wolf-dingo, whose passage he had challenged in the dawning of that day. He recognized the voice, and read clearly enough the meaning of the cry. He knew that this was a more considerable enemy than any he had faced as yet, and there was time in the moment of his waking for regret to flash through his mind that the challenge should have come now, while his whole body was scarred with unhealed wounds, and his left thigh was stiff from the punishing slash of the kangaroo's mailed foot. In the next moment he was outside the mouth of the den, his deep, fierce bark rending the silence of the night. The eight dingoes who followed in Lupus's trail heard the bark, and glanced one at another in meaning comment thereon. Never was a leader of men or beasts more cordially hated than Lupus. There was not a dingo who could call his leadership into question; even the young and daring members of the pack who pretended to scoff at the traditional awe in which Tasman was held, admitted the tyrannical mastership of Lupus as something ever-present and unavoidable; but that by no manner of means lessened their cordial hatred of the fierce half-breed, with his massive neck and shoulders that fangs seemed powerless to hurt, his jaws which were as swift as they were mighty to rend, and his claws which were as terrible as those of an old-man kangaroo, and more deadly in action because he had four sets of them. Black-tip experienced a generous sensation of sympathy and pity for Finn, and so did the two friends of his who had fed that night upon good fresh kangaroo flesh. But they, like all the others, were keen to see the coming fight, and--to act accordingly. The question of what was to become of Warrigal had occurred with interest to each one of them, for she was eminently desirable just then to all her kind.

Fierce, savage, and justly feared though he was physically, Lupus was mentally a sluggish beast, and not over and above intelligent. In this he favoured his sire, who was slow-moving, sluggish, and, withal, as fierce as any weasel, and immensely powerful. When Lupus caught his first glimpse of the creature he had come to slay, he had a momentary thrill of uneasiness, but it was no more than momentary. Finn's towering form stood out clearly in the moonlight, as he stood, with tail curved upward and hackles erect, on the stone ledge outside the den. Lupus was scaling an extremely steep section of the trail at the moment, and, seen against the sky-line, Finn seemed monstrous. But, in justice, one should say that Lupus knew nothing of fear. It was only that for a moment, as he dragged his full-fed weight upward over the stones, the thought passed through his dull mind that this was surely a strange sort of dingo and extraordinarily tall. Finn was, as a matter of fact, ten inches taller than any other dingo on that range except Lupus, and four inches taller than he. Lupus was half as heavy again as any other dingo on the range, but, though he knew it not, Finn was twenty pounds heavier than he. But Lupus always had killed every animal that he had met in combat, and it did not for an instant occur to him that he might fail to kill this new-comer. And then there was Warrigal--he got her scent now as she emerged, crouching, from the den--he wanted Warrigal for his mate and he would have her.

wolfhound standing above Lupus

Finn's towering form stood out clearly in the moonlight.

Finn was standing in the middle of the flat ledge outside the den, and he neither advanced or retreated a single step as Lupus drew nearer. He simply bayed, at intervals, like a minute-gun, and scratched a little at the sandy rock beneath him with his right fore-foot. Once, Warrigal, snarling savagely, ranged up alongside him, but he sent her back to the mouth of the den with a peremptory growl which admitted of no argument. "This is my affair," his growl said. "Stay you back there in the doorway." And Warrigal, like the good spouse she was, retreated to the mouth of the den. Just then Lupus landed on the rock-ledge with a hectoring snarl which betrayed extravagance in a commodity he could ill afford to waste--breath. He plunged forward upon Finn with the clumsiness of a buffalo, and, for his instruction, received a slashing bite across one shoulder and a chest thrust which sent him rolling backwards off the ledge to the trail below, on his back.

A dingo in Finn's place would have leaped upon him then, and, it may be, the fight would have ended suddenly; for even so redoubtable a foe as Lupus is of no very great account if he can be seized when on his back, with all four feet in the air. Black-tip and his companions in the rear drew in their breath sharply. They had never before seen Lupus on his back, and if he had stayed there another second he would have had their fangs to reckon with. But his reception by the stranger taught Lupus something, and the enemy that faced Finn for the second assault was a far more deadly one than the Lupus of a few moments earlier. Finn had scorned to pursue his fallen foe, but it would have been better for him if he had had less pride. The fan-shaped line of watching dingoes closed in a little as Lupus remounted the rocky ledge, with a blood-curdling snarl and an awe-inspiring exposure of his gleaming fangs. In another instant the two were at grips, and Finn realized that he was engaged in a fight for life, and a far more serious combat than any he had known before. The mere weight of impact with the wolf-dingo was sufficient to tell Finn this, and for the infinitesimal fraction of an instant he felt a sense of fatality and doom when his opponent's tremendously powerful jaws closed over the upper part of his right fore-leg.

In the next instant Finn had torn one of Lupus's ears in half, and the terrible grip on his leg was relaxed. The Wolfhound sprang completely over the wolf-dingo, and took a slashing bite at the creature's haunches as he descended. Then they rose one at the other, like bears standing erect, and meeting jaw to jaw in mid-air, with a flashing and clashing of fangs which sent a thrill of excitement along the line of watchful dingoes, who realized now that they were looking on at the greatest spectacle of their lives. Lupus missed his grip that time, but so did Finn, being unable to withstand the violent sidelong wrench which snatched the enemy's neck from his jaws. And, as they came to earth again, Lupus secured firm hold upon Finn's leg in the same grip that he had obtained before. The grip was so vice-like and punishing as to flash panic into Finn's very soul, such as an animal knows when trapped by a man's device in unyielding steel. It was only by a violent twist of his neck that he could bring his jaws into action upon Lupus at all. But panic drove, and the long, immensely powerful neck was curved sufficiently. His jaws took the wolf-dingo at the back of the head, and one of his lower canines actually penetrated Lupus's lower jaw, causing him the most excruciating pain, so that he emitted a sound more like a hoarse scream than a growl, and snatched his head back swiftly from so terrible a punishment. That was the last time in this fight that Finn's legs were in serious danger. He had learned his lesson, and from that point onward, no matter what punishment his shoulders might receive, his hanging jaws, from which the blood dripped now, effectually guarded his legs.

From this point, too, Lupus seemed to have centred all his desires upon the Wolfhound's throat; an underhold was what he sought, and in the pursuit of that he seemed prepared for, and capable of standing, any amount of punishment. The line of watching dingoes was still and silent as a line of statuary; it seemed they hardly drew breath, so intent was their preoccupation. Warrigal, too, stuck closely to her position, but she was not silent; a low, continuous snarl issued from her parted jaws, and the updrawn line of her lips showed white and glistening in the moonlight. She had been ordered to the rear by her mate, but the waiting dingoes on the trail below realized that if Finn were to be laid low, there would still be fighting to be done on that ledge of rock, and fighting of a deadly sort, at that, from which there would be no escaping.

In one sense the Wolfhound's great height was against him now, since it placed Lupus in a more favourable position for securing the underhold upon which he was intent. But, as against that, it gave Finn readier access to the hold which in all his fights hitherto he had made fatal: the hold which a terrier takes upon a rat. But Lupus was no rat, and Finn had already found more than once that even his mighty jaws were not powerful enough to give killing pressure through all the mass of harsh bristles and thick rolling skin and flesh which protected Lupus's spinal cord at the neck. Three times during the later stages of the fight Lupus managed to ward off attack with a lightning stroke of one fore-foot, the claws of which scored deep into Finn's muzzle and neck, in one case opening a lesser vein, and sending the red blood rushing over his iron-grey coat. It seemed the long claws of the wolf-dingo were almost more deadly than his snapping jaws.

The flow of his own blood seemed to madden Finn, and he made a plunge for his enemy's neck. Lupus sat erect, and, like a boxer, or a big bear, warded off the plunge with a violent, sweeping blow of his right paw. There was a quick flash of bloody, foam-flecked fangs, and the deadly paw was crushed between Finn's jaws. The pain of the crushing drew a screeching howl from Lupus, and in that same instant a powerful upward twist of Finn's neck threw him fairly on his back, snarling despairingly. One could not measure the fraction of time which elapsed between Finn's release of the crushed foot and his seizure of the throat--the deadly underhold. The wolf-dingo's bristles were thin there, and the skin comparatively soft. The fight was for life, and it was the whole of the Wolfhound's great strength that he put into his grip. Lupus's entire frame, every inch of it, writhed and twisted convulsively, like the body of a huge cat in torment. Finn's fangs sank half an inch deeper. The wolf-dingo's claws tore impotently at space, and his body squirmed almost into a ball. Finn's fangs sank half an inch deeper, and hot blood gushed between them. Lupus's great body hunched itself into an almost erect position from the shoulder-blades; he was standing on his shoulders. Then, as in a convulsion, one of his hind-legs was lowered in order that it might saw upward, scoring three deep furrows down the side of the Wolfhound's neck. Finn's fangs met in the red centre of his enemy's throat. There was a faint grunt, a final spasm of muscular activity, and then Finn drew back, and shook his dripping muzzle in the air. The fierce lord of Mount Desolation had entered upon the long sleep; his lordship was ended.

Finn sank back upon his haunches, gasping, with a length of scarlet, foam-streaked tongue dangling from one side of his jaws. The watching line of dingoes advanced two paces. Warrigal, stepping forward to her mate's side, snarled warningly. But Finn pushed her gently with his lacerated muzzle, and, turning then to the watchful dingoes below, he emitted a little whinnying sound which said plainly: "You are welcome here!" Acting upon this, Black-tip moved slowly, deferentially forward, and climbed the flat ledge of rock, his bushy tail respectfully curled between his legs. Long and thoroughly he sniffed at the dead body of the terrible Lupus, and then he looked round at his still waiting companions, and whined as he walked back toward them. In twos and threes the dingoes followed Black-tip's lead, and climbed the flat rock to sniff their dead tyrant, and satisfy themselves that he had indeed entered upon the long sleep.  And the gesture in Finn's direction, with which they turned away from the rock, was as near to being a salutation, an obeisance, as anything that mortal dingo has ever achieved. And when the last of the band, reinforced now by half a dozen others who had been hastily summoned from their hunting near by, had paid his visit of inspection, Finn did a curious thing, which probably no dingo would ever have done. He moved slowly forward on his aching limbs, gripped the dead body firmly by the neck, and heaved it down from the flat rock to the trail below. Then he barked aloud, a message which said plainly--

"Here is your old lord and tyrant! Take him away, and leave me now!"

Black-tip and half a dozen of his comrades seized upon the carcase of the tyrant and dragged it away down the trail. I cannot say what was done with the remains of Lupus, the terrible son of Tasman; but Finn and Warrigal saw them no more, and for three days after that night of the slaying of Lupus, the bush-folk saw nothing of the Wolfhound. They saw Warrigal hunt alone each evening and, doubtless with thoughts of Finn in their minds, they respected her trail, and sought no speech of her, tempting though the sight of the Mount Desolation belle was to the young bucks of the pack. These young bloods, by the way, began to mutter now of the desirability of banding together to beard old Tasman in his den, and rid themselves of the shadow and tradition of tyranny, as well as its actuality. But the counsel of the elders strongly favoured delay. "Let us wait and see what the Great One will do when he is healed of his wounds," was what they thought, and, after their own fashion, said to the ambitious youngsters.

dingo with pups

DOMESTIC LIFE IN THE MOUNTAIN DEN

If a man succeeded in getting himself as much chopped about as Finn had been since the evening of his departure from the boundary-rider's gunyah and the severance of his connection with the world of men-folk, he would require weeks of careful nursing and doctoring before he could be said to have recovered. Fortunately for the people of the wild, who have neither nurses nor doctors, and whose ways of life do not permit of prolonged periods of rest, recovery from wounds is not so serious a business with them as it is with us.

When the Wolfhound and his admiring mate between them had thoroughly licked and cleansed his numerous wounds, he stretched himself deliberately across the rear corner of the den, and there lay, sleeping soundly, until the next morning was well advanced. His body was lacerated by the wounds of three considerable fights: the fight with Black-tip and his friend; the sufficiently violent struggle with the mother-kangaroo; and lastly, the most serious fight of the Wolfhound's life, which had ended in the death of Lupus. But even the ten hours which Finn gave to sleep--he opened his eyes two or three times during that period, but did not move--brought a wonderful change in the aspect of these numerous wounds. They had advanced some distance in the direction of healing already. Now they were submitted to another thorough licking. Then Finn crept out into the sunlight beside the cave's mouth, and slept again, fitfully, till evening came. Then he sat up and licked all his wounds over again with painstaking and scrupulous care. They were healing nicely, and the healing process made Finn as stiff and sore as though he had had rheumatics in every joint in his body. So he crept painfully into the den again, and lay down to sleep once more, while Warrigal, with a friendly, wifely look at her lord, went out hunting.

In this way three full days and nights passed, and on the fourth night Finn killed for himself--a small kill, and not far from home, but a kill, none the less, that required a certain agility, of which he already found himself quite capable. In the matter of strength and vital energy the Wolfhound had immense reserves to draw upon--greater reserves, really, than any of the wild folk possessed; for, in his youth, he had never known scarcity of food, or lack of warmth, or undue exposure; and, on the contrary, his system had been deliberately built up and fortified by the best sort of diet that the skill and science of man could devise. Finn could not have stood as much killing as a dingo, and still have lived; for the dingo is as hard an animal to kill as any that walks upon four legs. But, as against that, the Wolfhound could have stood a far greater living strain than any dingo. He had more to feed upon in himself. For actual toughness under murderous assault a dingo could have beaten Finn; yet in a test of staying power, an ordeal of long endurance, the Wolfhound would have won easily, by reason of his greater reserve of strength and vitality.

From this point onward, Finn's wounds troubled him but very little, and in the healing air of that countryside they soon ceased to be apparent to the eye. An ordinary dingo would assuredly have been obliged to fight many fights before obtaining ascendancy over the Mount Desolation pack; but the mastery fell naturally to Finn without calling for any effort upon his part. He had slain the redoubtable old leader and tyrant of the pack. He had soundly trounced one of the strongest among the fully-grown young dingoes, Black-tip, and killed another in single-handed fight against two. Now, he administered condign punishment to two or three young bucks who ventured to attempt familiarity with Warrigal, but for fighting he was not called upon. Most of the pack had taken good measure of his prowess on the night of the slaying of Lupus, and that was enough for them, so far as mastery went. Further, the pack found Finn a generous leader, a kingly sort of friend; slow to anger, and merciful even in wrath; open as the day, and never, in any circumstances, tyrannical or aggressive. Then in the matter of his kills, Finn was generosity itself. As a hunter of big game he was more formidable than any three dingoes, and, withal, never rapacious. Three portions he would take from his kill; one to satisfy his own hunger, one for Warrigal to satisfy her hunger upon, and a third to be set aside and taken back to the den against the time when Warrigal should care to dispose of it. For the rest, be his kill what it might, Finn made the pack free of it.

But no sort of temptation seemed strong enough to take the Wolfhound near to the haunts of men. It came to be understood that Finn would not touch sheep, and, reasoning it out amongst themselves, the rest of the pack accepted this as a prohibition meant to apply to all of them; so that Finn's mastership was an exceedingly good thing for the squatters and their flocks all through the Tinnaburra. But a full-grown kangaroo, no matter how heavy and strong in the leg, never seemed too much for Finn; and so, all dingoes liking big game better than small, it came about that every night saw the Mount Desolation dingoes hunting in pack formation at the heels of the great Wolfhound. They scorned the lesser creatures whose flesh had fed them hitherto, and expected to taste wallaby or kangaroo flesh every night. Finn thoroughly enjoyed the hunting, and did not care how many fed at his kill, so that his mate and he had ample.

Once, the two youngest members of the pack, puppies quite new to the trail, were attacked and driven from the remains of a big kill the leader had made by an outlier, a strange dingo from some other range. The youngsters, bleeding and yelping, carried their woes to the scrub below the mountain, and within the hour Finn learned of it. Followed by Black-tip and one or two others of the more adventurous sort, he set out upon the trail of the outlier, now full fed, ran it down at the end of four or five miles' hard galloping, pinned the unfortunate creature to the earth and shook it into the long sleep, almost before they had come to a standstill together. This was true leadership the pack felt, a thing Lupus would never have done; something to be placed to the great Wolfhound's credit, and not forgotten. The mother of the whelps that were attacked, a big, light-coloured dingo, with sharp, prick ears, was particularly grateful to Finn.

During this time a subtle change crept over Finn's appearance. In its details the change was so slight that the casual observer would have said it did not exist at all; yet, in truth, it was radical. It would be impossible to put this change precisely into words. An Irish Wolfhound is never sleek; at least, that is never a characteristic of the breed. Yet, as compared with the wild folk, every sort of animal which lives with men has a certain kind of sleekness or softness about it. It may be imagined that Finn did not have much of this when he escaped from the Southern Cross Circus. And in the period which followed that escape, although he had, in a sense, associated with a man and a man's dog, yet there had not been much in the life of the boundary-rider's camp to make for sleekness. Nevertheless, when Finn first met his mate, Warrigal, there had lingered about him still a kind of trimness, a suggestion of softness, far different, indeed, from that of the ordinary domesticated house-dog; but yet, in its own way, a sort of sleekness. Not a vestige of this remained now. Though he fed well and plentifully, and his life was not a hard one, since he only did that which pleased him, yet Finn had acquired now the hard, spare look of the creatures of the wild. In his alertness, in the blaze of his eyes, and the gleam of his fangs when hunting, in his extreme wariness and in the silence of his movements, and his deadly swiftness in attack, Finn had become one of his mate's own kindred. He differed from them in his great bulk, his essentially commanding appearance, in his dignity, and in a certain lordly generosity which always characterized him. He never disputed; he never indulged in threats or recrimination. He gave warning, when warning was needed; he punished, when punishment was needed; and he killed, if killing was desirable; making no sort of fuss about either process. Also, upon occasion, though not often, he barked. Otherwise, he was thoroughly of the wild kindred, and the unquestioned master of the Mount Desolation range.

Some six or seven weeks after his arrival upon that range, Finn began to notice that Warrigal was changing in some way, and he did not like the change. It seemed to him that his mate no longer cared for him so much as she had cared. She spent more time in lying about in or near the den, and showed no eagerness to accompany him in his excursions, or to gambol with him, or even to lie with him on the warm, flat ledge outside the den. She seemed to prefer her own company, and Finn thought her temper was getting unaccountably short, too. However, life was very full of independent interest for the Wolfhound, and it was only in odd moments that he noticed these things. One night he was thoroughly surprised when Warrigal snarled at him in a surly manner, without any apparent cause at all, unless because he had touched her with his nose in a friendly way, by way of inviting her to accompany him, he being bound for the killing trail in quest of that night's supper.

Finn walked out of the den, carrying his nose as high as he could, in view of the stoop necessary at the entrance, and feeling rather put out. A dingo in his place would have snarled back at Warrigal and, it may be, have wrangled about it for half an hour. Finn's dignity would not permit of this, but he was hurt, and decided that his spouse needed a lesson in courtesy. Since she responded so rudely to his invitation to join him in the hunt, she might go supperless for him; he would eat where he killed, and bring home nothing.

Finn killed a half-grown kangaroo, a lusty red-coated youngster, that night, and he, with Black-tip and two or three others of the pack, fed full upon this before going down to the creek together to drink. Finn even spent an hour in trifling with a pair of sister dingoes who generally hunted together, and ranged the trails with Black-tip, in more or less sportive mood, till long after midnight. In the small hours the Wolfhound parted with Black-tip and the sportive sisters among the scrub at the mountain's foot, and wended his way alone to his den on the first spur, prepared, as many a male human has been in like case, to seek his rest without taking any notice of his mate, unless, perchance, he found her in a repentant mood. At the mouth of the cave he stooped low, as he was bound to do, to gain admittance, and in that moment he was brought to a halt by a long, angry, threatening snarl from within. Warrigal was very plainly telling her mate to remain outside, unless he was looking for trouble. This was unprecedented, and he was a very angry and outraged Wolfhound, who withdrew slowly with as much dignity as might be in walking backward with lowered head and shoulders.

"You will think better of this before morning, my dear!" was the sort of thought that Finn had in his mind, as he selected a comfortable sleeping-place in the shadow of a bush some half-dozen paces away from the mouth of the den. And then, being well fed and rather tired, he fell into a sound sleep until just after daybreak, when he woke to the sound of an unfamiliar small cry. With head slightly on one side and ears cocked sharply, Finn listened. The small cry was repeated. It certainly was not Warrigal's voice, though it came from the inside of the den. Also, there were a number of other small sounds that were strange--weak, quaint, gurgling sounds. Finn inclined his head a little farther to one side. Yes, his mate was licking something. Could she have been out and hunted alone? Even that would hardly account for the queer little, weak, strange voices within the den. The dingo people are not cats, and when they kill they kill outright. It was extremely puzzling and interesting, and Finn decided to investigate. After all, this was his own home and, however rude she may have been, Warrigal was his own mate, for whom he had fought and bled in the past; the mate who had lovingly dressed his wounds and shared his kills for nine weeks now--nine long, eventful weeks, which were more than equal to nine months in human folk's lives.

Finn stooped low in the entrance and Warrigal snarled. But this time there was no note of aggression in her snarl. Indeed, to her mate, there was a hint of appeal in the salutation, which said clearly: "Be careful! Please be careful!" He advanced with extreme caution into the den, and saw his spouse lying full at length on her side, her bushy tail curled round to form a background for the smallest of four sleek puppies, of a yellowish grey colour, whom she was nursing assiduously. Moving with the utmost delicacy and care, Finn sniffed all round his mate, refraining from touching the puppies by way of humouring Warrigal, in whose throat a low growl sounded whenever his nose approached the little strangers. Then Finn stood and stared at the domestic group with hanging head and parted jaws, his tongue lolling, and his eyes saying plainly--

"Well, well, well! Who'd have thought of this! They are really very nice little creatures, in their insignificant way, though I don't quite see why their presence should make you snarl at your own lawful mate."

Seeing that her lord manifestly entertained no shadow of a hostile intention toward the family (the history of the male dingo is not altogether free from blame in the matter of infanticide), Warrigal raised her nose in friendly fashion to the Wolfhound and permitted him to lick her, which he did in the most affectionate manner, and with no further thought of her previous harshness. Then she gave a little whine and glanced round the walls of the den. Finn barked quietly, bidding his mate rest assured that all would be well, and ten minutes later he was descending upon a rabbit-earth that he knew of, a moving shadow of death among young bunnies assembled to welcome the dewy warmth of the new day. On the way home he dropped his rabbit to stalk a half-grown bandicoot; and finally, after less than an hour's absence, he returned to the den carrying a rabbit and a bandicoot, so that Warrigal might have variety in her breakfast. Being parched with thirst, Warrigal gratefully accepted both kills, and without actually eating either drew some sustenance from both. Then with an anxious look at the family she nudged Finn out of the den with her nose, and, leaving him outside on the ledge, turned and raced for the creek, like an arrow from a bow. She was back again inside of two minutes with bright drops clinging to her fur. Finn had sat patiently beside the mouth of the den waiting, and for this Warrigal gave him a grateful glance of appreciation before gliding into her puppies, who already were beginning to whimper for warmth and nourishment.

Finn took very naturally to the part of father and bread-winner. He lounged about the mouth of the den through the day, creeping in occasionally to see how things went with his mate, and returning then to keep guard outside. She allowed him now to touch the odd little creatures who were his children; but they did not like the feeling of his tongue, and wriggled away from it in their blind, helpless way. "There, there!" said Finn low down in his throat, and withdrew, marvelling afresh at the mysteries of life and the cleverness of femininity. As for Warrigal, she seemed absurdly happy and proud about it all now, and assumed considerable airs of importance. She took her food in brief snatches a dozen times during the day, and when Finn left her in the early night for the trails, she looked at him in a meaning way which said plainly that she attached importance to the matter of food supply, though she could not take to the trails herself, being otherwise and fully occupied. Finn licked her muzzle reassuringly and went out.

The pack had to forage for itself that night, for when Finn made his kill--a fat rock wallaby--he announced in the most unmistakable manner that there was nothing to spare for followers that night, and marched off mountain-wards, trailing the whole heavy kill over his right shoulder. In the course of the night it became known to all the wild people of that range that the mate of the leader of the pack had other mouths than her own to feed, and that for the time Finn would do all the hunting for the den on the first spur.

Tasman carrying off dead pup

TRAGEDY IN THE MOUNTAIN DEN

When Warrigal's puppies were born, Finn, their father, had been in the Tinnaburra for nearly five months, though he had only known the Mount Desolation range for some nine or ten weeks. During the whole of that five months of late winter and spring, not one single drop of rain had fallen in the Tinnaburra, and with the coming of Warrigal's children there came also the approach of summer. Finn, for his part, gave no thought to this question of weather, because he had quite forgotten that there was such a thing as rain. It had not rained while he was in the city with the Master, after landing in Australia. The little that fell during the period of his imprisonment with the Southern Cross Circus had never touched the caged Giant Wolf, and he had entirely forgotten what falling rain felt like. He had slept on the earth ever since his escape from the circus, and he accepted its dryness as a natural and agreeable fact.

But both Finn and Warrigal were rather annoyed when, just as the puppies began to open their eyes and become a little troublesome and curious, the creek at the foot of Mount Desolation disappeared through its shingly bed and was seen no more. This meant a tramp of three and a half miles to the nearest drinking-place, a serious matter for a nursing mother, whose tongue seemed always to be lolling thirstily from the side of her mouth. Warrigal would make the journey to the drinking-place as swiftly as she could, and drink till she could drink no more. Then during the return journey concern for her children would set the pace for her, and she would arrive at the den panting and gasping, and more thirsty than when she left it; for the weather was already hot, the air singularly dry, and Warrigal herself in no condition for fast travelling, with her heavy dugs and body, both amply fed and amply drawn upon in her capacity of nurse-mother. Finn did his part well and thoroughly, and there was no lack of good fresh meat in the den on the first spur, but he could not carry water. Warrigal tried to slake her mother-thirst by means of an extra heavy meat diet, but though she knew it not, this only aggravated her continual desire for water, which was Nature's demand for assistance in fitting her to discharge adequately her duty to her children. And so, during all this time, Finn's mate found herself obliged to run over hard, parched ground at least fourteen miles a day, and often twenty-one, when it would have suited her, and her puppies also, a good deal better to have confined her exercise to strolls in the neighbourhood of the den.

One result of this was that Warrigal's children began to eat meat at an earlier stage of their existence than would have been the case if water had been plentiful and near at hand for their mother. There never were more carnivorous little creatures than these puppies. At first, of course, their mother saw to it that the meat they consumed was of a ready-masticated and even a half-digested sort; but in an astonishingly short while they began to rend and tear raw flesh for themselves, under the mother's watchful eye; and from that time on Finn was a very busy hunter. It was probably because of this unceasing demand for fresh meat in the den on the first spur that the leader of the Mount Desolation pack was the first member of it to notice that hunting was becoming increasingly difficult in that region. Finn's quest was necessarily for large meat; and at about this time he was discovering to his cost that he had to go farther and farther afield to find it. It was well enough for the bachelors and spinsters of the pack, the free-lances of that clan. The district was still rich in its supply of the lesser marsupials, rats, mice, and the like; not to mention all manner of grubs, and insects, and creeping things, among which it was easy for a single dingo to satisfy his appetite. But a giant Wolfhound, with a very hungry mate and four ravening little pups, all waiting eagerly upon his hunting, was quite differently situated.

Finn's hunting took him one evening far enough south and by east to bring him within half a mile of the boundary-rider's encampment in which he had lived with Jess. Here he happened upon Koala, who was softly grumbling to himself while waddling from one tree to another. Koala, of course, began the usual plaint about his poverty and inoffensiveness. This was mechanical with him, and he must have known very well that Finn would not hurt him. As a matter of fact, the Wolfhound lay down beside the native bear, and they had quite a long confab upon bush affairs, during which Finn referred in some way to the growing scarcity of game in that district, and Koala mournfully added that gum-leaves themselves were by no means what they had been. But, for all his foolishness and helplessness, Koala had lived a very long time, and actually was very well versed in bush-lore, though he liked to describe himself as the most forlorn and helpless of beasts. He knew all about the scarceness of big game and its causes, just as he knew all about the dryness and want of sap in his own vegetable food; and now, by means of the methods of communication of which we know nothing, he managed to convey some of his knowledge to Finn, so that when they separated, Finn connected the drying up of the Mount Desolation creek with the hardness of his recent hunting, and the heat and absence of rain with both. The ordinary season for rain had passed now, and the full length of Australian summer was before them; a fact of which the learned Koala said nothing, probably because he did not know it, or, possibly, because he did not greatly care, being a total abstainer from drink himself.

It was at about this time that Warrigal herself returned to the trails. Finn had in no sense failed her as bread-winner, but, game being scarce, and her children still too young to do any foraging for themselves worth talking about, Warrigal felt that she owed it to her mate to share his burdens with him. The pups had already reached the stage of grovelling about outside the den, and pursuing the few live things of the insect type who affected that stony spot. One of them, indeed, had already learned a lesson that would last him for the rest of his life, regarding the habits, customs, and general undesirability of the bull-dog ant as play-mate or prey.

wolfhound carrying wallaby up mountain

He slung the wallaby over his shoulder and set out for the mountain.

It happened, about a week after his meeting with Koala, that Finn had a stroke of luck in the matter of stumbling upon a badly wounded wallaby within a couple of miles of the den. In some way this unfortunate creature had managed to get its right hind-leg caught in a dingo-trap, to which a heavy clog of wood was attached. In the course of time the wallaby would have died very miserably, and already it had begun to lose flesh. But Finn brought a mercifully sudden death to the crippled creature, and then proceeded to tear in sunder the limb which held the trap. Having accomplished this, he slung the wallaby over his shoulder and set out for the mountain, meaning to allow the family to feast upon this early kill, while he took a further look round upon the trails.

Just as Finn, heavily laden, scaled the rocky ledge immediately below the one which flanked the entrance of the den, a shrill cry of mortal anguish fell upon his ears, and thrilled him to the very marrow. The cry came from the inside of the den above him, and he knew it for the cry of one of his children in extremity. That gave Finn the most piercing thrill of paternity he had felt up till this time. He dropped his kill, and leaped with one mighty bound clear over two boulders and a bare stretch of track to the ledge outside the den. And, in the moment of his leap, a figure emerged from the mouth of the den bearing between its uncovered, yellow tusks the body of Warrigal's last-born son, limp and bleeding. This figure which faced Finn now in the moonlight was the most terribly ugly one that the countryside could have produced. Gaunt beyond description, ragged, grey, bereft of hair in many places, aged and desperate, old Tasman, the Zebra-Wolf, had his tusks sunk in warm, juicy flesh for the first time in three months, and was prepared to pay for the privilege with the remains of his life if need be. Skin, bone, glittering eyes, and savage, despairing ferocity; that was all there was left of Tasman, three months after the death of his son Lupus. He had lived so long almost entirely upon insects, grubs, scraps of carrion dropped by birds, and the like. Desperate hunger, and the smell of young animal life, and of the proceeds of daily kills, had drawn him to the den on the first spur that night; and now, now he was face to face with the master of the range, and the outraged father of Warrigal's pups.

The gaunt old wolf dropped his prey on the instant, realizing clearly that his life was at stake. In his day he had slain many dingoes, but that was in the distant past, and this iron-grey monster which roared at him now was different from the dingoes Tasman had known. With massive, bony skull held low, and saliva dripping from his short, powerful jaws, the old wolf sent forth his most terrible snarl of challenge and defiance; the cry which had been used in bygone years to paralyse his victims into a condition which made them easy prey for his tearing claws and lance-like tusks. But the horrible sound was powerless so far as Finn was concerned, and the Wolfhound gathered himself together now for the administration of punishment which should be as swift as it would be terrible and final. But in that moment he heard a scattering of loose stones behind him which delayed his spring to allow time for a flying glance over his right shoulder; and that glance changed his whole tactics in the matter of the attack upon Tasman. For, even as Finn glanced, an outstretched furry mass flew across his range of vision, and landed like a projectile upon the gaunt old wolf's neck. Warrigal also had returned; she also had dropped her kill in the trail below the den, and now Tasman had to deal with the dauntless fury of a bereaved mother. Warrigal was a whirlwind of rage; a revelation to Finn of the fighting force which had given her her unquestioned standing in the pack before ever she set eyes on the Wolfhound.

Tasman had his back against the side of the den's mouth now, and he flung Warrigal from him, with a slash of his jaws and a twist of his still powerful neck. But, in the next moment, the under-side of that scrawny neck was between the mightiest jaws in the Tinnaburra, and, even as the life blood of old Tasman flowed out between Finn's white fangs, the body of him was being literally torn in sunder by the furiously busy teeth and claws of Warrigal. It was little she cared for the thrusts of his hind-claws in the last muscular contortions which sent his legs tearing at her neck. She was possessed of the mother-madness, and so she fought like a wild cat at bay. Old Tasman was not just killed; he was dispersed, scattered, dissolved almost into the elements from which he sprang; he was translated within a few minutes into shapeless carrion.

And then, gasping, bleeding, panting, her jaws streaming, Warrigal wheeled about with a savage, moaning cry, and shot forward into the den. One son she had seen dead upon the ledge without. Two daughters she found dead within, and, while she licked at his lacerated little body, the lingering life ebbed out finally from the other male pup, her sole remaining son. But Warrigal licked the still little form for almost an hour, though it lived for no more than three or four minutes after she entered the den.

Then Warrigal went outside to where Finn sat, alternately licking the one deep wound the old wolf had scored in his chest, and looking out dismally across the Tinnaburra. Warrigal sat down on her haunches about two yards from Finn, and, having pointed her muzzle at the moon, where it sailed serenely above them in a flawless dark blue sky, she began to pour out upon the night the sound of the long, hoarse dingo howl of mourning. Finn listened for some minutes without moving. By that time the melancholy of it all had entered fairly into his soul, and he, too, lifted up his head and delivered himself of the Irish Wolfhound howl, which carries farther than the dingo howl, and is more purely mournful than any other canine cry. Also, it has more volume than any other; there is something uncanny and supernatural about its piercing melancholy. So the sire and the dam sat and howled at the stars in their unclouded courses. And if you were to visit that den to-day, on the first south-eastern spur of Mount Desolation, you would probably find the skeletons of three of Finn's and Warrigal's children; for the Wolfhound and his mate never entered their old home again.

wolfhound and dingoes stalking kangaroos

THE EXODUS

It was rather an odd thing, this fact that neither Finn or his mate ever again entered the lair which had been such a happy home for them since the day of their first meeting. But so it was, and one is bound to assume, I think, that the reason of it was grief for the loss of their children. In the early dawning of a blistering hot day they paced slowly down the hill and into the rocky strip of scrub which divided Mount Desolation from the bush itself. Hereabouts it was that the rest of the pack lived; and, though Finn and Warrigal conveyed no definite news of what had happened during the night, the news must have spread somehow, because before the sun had properly risen every single member of the pack had climbed the spur and investigated for himself or herself the scattered carrion which had been Tasman. Whether they looked into the den or not, as well, I do not know; but I should say that some of the adventurous youngsters did, while their elders and parents probably refrained.

These same elders and parents were beginning to feel considerable distress over the absence of rain, the scarcity of water, and the poor results which attended their hunting. The wild folk of the Australian bush are, upon the whole, less dependent upon water than the animals of most countries, and such people as Koala, the native bear, seem to get along quite happily without ever drinking anything at all. Even kangaroos and wallabies can go for a long while without drinking, but there is a limit to the endurance of most of the bush animals in the matter of thirst, while, as for the dingoes, they want their water every day as much as they need their food. There was no longer any disguising the fact that a very large number of the wild folk, in whom Finn and Warrigal and the rest of the pack were interested, had recently migrated in quest of homes that should be better supplied with water than the Tinnaburra or the Mount Desolation range. It was not that the pack felt the absence of these folk as companions, but as food. They were also beginning to feel keenly the burnt-up dryness of that whole countryside and the extreme heat of the season.

Even Finn's prowess as a hunter and a killer was of no avail in the absence of game to hunt, and during the few days which he and Warrigal spent among the scrub at the mountain's foot, after leaving their den, the Wolfhound sometimes travelled from thirty to forty miles without a single kill, being reduced then, like the rest of the pack, to eat rabbit flesh, and mice, and grubs. Already some of the younger members of the pack had begun to prey upon the flocks of squatters in the Tinnaburra, and this had brought speedy retribution in the shape of one young female of their kindred shot through the head, and two promising males trapped and slain, so that the pack now consisted of no more than fourteen adults and six whelps, who were hardly capable as yet of fending for themselves. Men with guns had actually been seen within a mile of Mount Desolation itself; and, owing to the attacks upon their bark of half-starved small fry, the trees of the bush were dying by hundreds, and thereby opening up in the most uncomfortable manner ranges which had previously been excellent hunting-grounds. The report about the men-folk with guns was most disturbing to Finn, and he was conscious, in sitting down, of a degree of boniness about his haunches such as he had never known since the horrible period of his captivity in the circus. A Wolfhound whose fighting weight is a hundred and fifty pounds requires a good deal more food than a dingo, whose weight rarely exceeds half that amount. Grubs and mice were not of much use to Finn; and when he drank, his long tongue had been wont to scoop up more than twice the amount of water which had served to satisfy any other member of the pack.

The growing restlessness and discontent which had been mastering the Mount Desolation pack for weeks now received an immense addition, so far as Finn and Warrigal were concerned, in the events which led them to forsake their den on the first spur. It culminated, in Finn's eyes, in the actual passage through the scrub beside the mountain's foot of a party of half a dozen mounted men with guns and dogs. This occurred in the late afternoon of a scorching hot day, when most of the pack were sleeping; and if the dogs of the men-folk had not been incredibly stupid in the matter of sticking closely to the trail, and making no attempt to range the scrub on either side of it, the dingoes would actually have been hunted like hares, and some of them, no doubt, would have been killed. As it was, Finn felt as strongly, and perhaps more strongly than any of the elders of the pack, that this event had rendered the range finally uninhabitable. His nostrils twitched and wrinkled for hours after the men had gone; and, as soon as darkness fell, he rose in a determined manner, thrust his muzzle meaningly against Warrigal's neck and took to the open trail. With extraordinary unanimity the other members of the pack began to gather behind Finn. It seemed to be clearly understood that this was no ordinary hunting expedition, and the two mothers of the pack, with their half-grown whelps, whined plaintively as they gathered their small families about them for journeying. The whelps, always eager for a new move of any kind, gambolled joyously around their parents, but the mothers snarled at them, bidding them go soberly, lest weariness and worse should overtake them before their time.

One very old dog, who had always looked with grudging sullenness upon the great Wolfhound and his doings, refused point-blank to be a party to the exodus, and croakingly warned the others against following a new-comer and an outlier such as Finn. He gave them to understand that he had been born in the shadow of Mount Desolation, like his sire and dam before him, and that he would live alone rather than forsake that range at the bidding of a great grey foreigner. The pack paid little heed to the old dingo, and he sat erect on his haunches beside the trail, watching them file along the flank of the mountain. When they were nearly a mile away, the old dingo began to howl dismally; and when Finn made his first kill, seven miles to the north-west of Mount Desolation, old Tufter--he had a sort of mop at the end of a rather scraggy tail--was on hand, and yowling eagerly for scraps. The kill was a half-starved brush-tailed wallaby, and nobody got much out of it but Warrigal and Finn, both of whom growled fiercely while they ate, in a manner which said plainly that they were not entertaining that night, at all events before the edge had been taken off their own appetites. So old Tufter got nothing more nutritious than a few scraps of scrubby fur.

The poor old fellow took great pains to communicate his own discomfort and mistrust to all the other members of the pack, except Finn and Warrigal, whom he ignored, and pointed out with vehemence that they were heading in the wrong direction. He was right in a way, for they certainly were leaving the better country behind them, in travelling to the north-west. South and east of Mount Desolation lay the fatter and comparatively well-watered lands. Even Finn knew this, of course; but that way also lay the habitations of men, and the Wolfhound's face was set firmly away from men and all their works. Men had tortured him in a cage, the memory of which their hot irons had burned right into his very soul. And, after that, men, in the person of a certain sulky boundary-rider, had driven him out from their neighbourhood with burning faggots, with curses, and with execrations. All this had been brought vaguely to Finn's mind by the passage through the scrub that day of horses and men, and the north-west trail was the only possible trail for him because of that.

From this point on, the pack moved slowly in scattered formation, each individual member hunting as he went along, with nose to earth and eyes a-glitter for possible prey of any kind, from a grub to an old-man kangaroo. Towards morning, when they were a good thirty miles distant from Mount Desolation, they topped a ridge, upon the farther slope of which a small mob of nine kangaroos were browsing among the scrub. Finn was after them like a shot, and Warrigal was at his heels, the rest of the pack streaming behind in a ragged line, the tail of which was formed by old Tufter and the whelps. There was a stiff chase of between three and four miles, and only five dingoes were within sight when Finn pinned the rearmost kangaroo by the neck, and Warrigal darted in cautiously upon one of its flanks. In an attack of this kind two things about Finn made his onslaught most deadly: his great weight, and the length and power of his massive jaws.

Even Tufter got a good meal from this kill, for the kangaroo was a big fellow of well over five feet from nose to haunch, without mention of his huge muscular tail, the meaty root of which kept the whelps busy for hours afterwards. The whole pack fed full, and in the neighbourhood of that range they scattered and slept; for in the gully on the other side of it there was a little muddy water, and round about there was pleasant cover which had sheltered the kangaroos for a week or more. Old Tufter forbore to growl, and the young members of the pack were enthusiastic regarding the advantages of migration in the trail of such a hunter as Finn. They did not know that, in a leisurely way, the mob of kangaroos they had flushed were also migrating, as the result of drought--but in the opposite direction to that chosen by Finn, who was heading now towards the part of the country which the kangaroos had forsaken as being burned and eaten bare, and devoid even of such food as bark.

When the dingoes had finished with the little chain of small pools in the gully on the afternoon of that day, there was little left but mud; one might have called it a creek bed, but it certainly was no longer a creek. However, that night's travel brought fairly good hunting, and always among game moving in the opposite direction to that taken by the pack. Finn and Warrigal and Black-tip shared a wallaby between them, and spared some portions of it for the whelps; though Warrigal snarled angrily when the young things came near her; the memory of her own family being still fresh within her. And the rest of the pack fared quite tolerably well, sharing between them a kangaroo-rat, two bandicoots, a wallaby-hare, and quite a considerable number of marsupial mice, besides about half of a big carpet-snake which Finn killed.

For a week now the little pack travelled on in a north-westerly direction, and every day old Tufter growled a little more bitterly and with a little better cause. Game was certainly becoming lamentably scarce, and the country traversed was one which did not at all commend itself to dingoes, being arid, shadeless, and dry as a bleached bone. It was the sort of country which, in Australia, is frequently covered by beautiful flowers and scrub during the winter, though perfectly bare in the summer. But the winter which had preceded this summer had been too dry to bring any growth here, so that it had not even the remains of a previous season's vegetation, and offered no trace of cover. A long and most exhausting chase did enable Finn to pull down a solitary emu, and of this the pack left nothing but beak and feathers when they passed on, still hungry, in quest of other game.

But for all the shortness of food, which was thinning the flesh over Finn's haunches now, it was another cause which led him to swerve from the north-westerly course in a south-westerly direction. He paid no particular heed to old Tufter's continuous growls about the direction taken by the pack under his leadership; but what he was forced to notice was the fact that for two whole days no water had been seen, and the lolling tongues of the young whelps were in consequence so swollen that they could not close their jaws. Throughout one weary night, the pack loped along in dogged silence in a south-westerly direction, their eyes blazing in the keen look out for game; dry, dust-encrusted foam caked upon their lips, and fierce anxiety in the heart of every one of them.

Then, in the brazen dawning of a day in which the sun seemed to thrust out great heat upon the baked earth even before it appeared above the horizon, the pack checked suddenly as Black-tip drew Finn's attention to a pair of Native Companions seen in the act of floating down to earth from the lower limbs of a shrivelled red-gum tree. The bigger of these two great cranes had a stature of something over five feet, and his fine blue-grey plumage covered an amount of flesh which would have made a meal for quite a number of dingoes. Yet it was not so much as food, but rather as a guide and indication, that Black-tip regarded the cranes. He knew that they would not be very far from water. The way in which the pack melted into cover in the dim, misty light of the coming day was very remarkable. For several miles now they had been travelling through a country less arid than the plains they had traversed during the previous two days, and now, while seeming to disappear into the earth itself--even as Echidna actually could and would, though the earth were baked hard--the members of the pack actually found cover by slinking low amongst a sort of wiry scrub growth with which the ground hereabouts was dotted.

It was thus that Finn saw for the first time the strange dance of the Native Companion. To and fro, and up and down beneath their scraggy gum-tree, the two great cranes footed it in a sort of grotesque minuet. There was a strange sort of angularity about all their movements, but, withal, a certain grace, bizarre and notable. And while the Native Companions solemnly paced through what was really a dance of death for them, Finn and Black-tip and Warrigal stalked them as imperceptibly as shadows lengthen across a lawn in evening time. The three hunters advanced through the scrub like snakes moving in their sleep, and never a leaf or twig made comment on their passage, as they slithered down the morning breeze, inch by inch, apparently a part of the shadowy earth itself. The prancing dance of the Native Companions--these birds mate for life and are deeply and devotedly attached one to another--was drawing to its close, when death came to them both like a bolt from the heavens; such a death as one would have chosen for them, since it left no time for fear or mourning, or grief at separation. Their necks were torn in sunder before they realized that they had been attacked, and within the minute their graceful feathered bodies shared the same fate, as the rest of the pack joined Finn and Warrigal and Black-tip. There was less of lordly generosity about Finn's feeding upon this occasion than he had always shown before. The great Wolfhound realized perhaps that his frame demanded more of nutriment than was necessary for the support of a dingo, and he ate with savage swiftness, growling angrily when any other muzzle than Warrigal's approached his own too nearly.

Less than half an hour later the pack was scrambling and sliding down the high banks of a river-bed, in the centre of which, surrounded upon both sides by a quarter of a mile and more of shingle and hard-baked mud, there was still a disconnected chain of small, yellow pools of water. The water was of something like the consistency of pea-soup, but no spring-fed mountain-rill ever tasted sweeter or more grateful to a thirsty traveller than this muddy fluid to the palates of the Mount Desolation pack. Finn chose a good-sized pool, and Warrigal tackled it with him; but when two youngsters of the pack ventured to approach the other side of that pool, Warrigal snarled at them so fiercely, backed by a low, gurgling growl from Finn, that the two slunk off, and tackled a lesser pool by themselves.

Scrambling and sliding down the high banks of a river-bed.

Where the pack drank they rested. As yet their great thirst was close to them, and the neighbourhood of water seemed too good to leave. But, in such matters, the memory of the wild folk is apt to be short. The banks of the river-bed ran due east and west here; and, though the pack gave no thought to the question, it was a matter of some importance to each one of them whether they should eventually leave those banks to the northward or to the southward; a matter of importance by reason of the difference in the country to the northward and to the southward. But it was chance at last that decided the question for them. They drank many times during the day, and towards nightfall a small mob of kangaroos was sighted to the northward, and that led the pack to head northward, a little westerly, from the river-bank that night.

wolfhound and dingo drinking from riverbed

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