cle at
concert pitch. The man moved forward, with hand outstretched
invitingly. The Wolfhound moved backward, with hackles slightly
raised. Thus they followed each other round the little yard perhaps
six times, the distance between them being maintained with nicety
and precision by Finn. Then Matey's mental inferiority appeared. He
was expecting very shortly now the man from whom he hoped to
receive his reward--the price of Finn. His intelligence, such as it
was, told him that strategy would now be necessary to enable him to
lay hands on the Wolfhound; but, even while recognising that, he
could not refrain from angrily flinging his chain in Finn's face,
after his sixth promenade of the yard, and cursing the dog
savagely, before retiring into the house to prepare a stratagem.

Finn did not snarl as the chain struck him. Instinct had not
carried him so far from education. But he barked angrily, and
bounded to one side. While the man was away Finn examined the gate
of the yard through which he had been driven on the previous night,
and, though it rattled hopefully when he plunged against it with
his fore-paws, raised high above its fastening, it remained solidly
closed.

As Finn turned away from the doors of the yard, Matey appeared from
the house, holding in one outstretched hand a piece of the same
kind of meat with which he had seduced Finn into accompanying him
on the previous evening, and calling the hound to him in a friendly
tone. But Finn had learned a good deal since his first taste of
that savoury meat; more a good deal than the man who offered the
meat had learned in the same time. Taking the middle of the yard,
so as to leave himself ample space for retreat, he remained
watchfully regarding Matey, and refused to advance a step. Matey's
spoken blandishments were now a dead letter to Finn. Having once
discovered the possibilities of human treachery, he would never
forget them. And here the folk who belong to what we call the brute
creation are apt to be a good deal wiser than their betters in the
scale of evolution. They do not forget the teaching of experience
so readily as do those of us who are farther removed from Nature.
To be sure, Matey's notion of strategy was puerile enough; but,
apart from that, it is safe to assume that Finn would never again
completely trust this man, who had been the first to introduce him
to fear and misery, to humiliation, and to knowledge of the
existence of treachery and crue