men in the boat tugging in front. Tim was
lying on his face on the doctor's knees, and gasping his way back
to life under a vigorous kneading treatment. Whatever it may have
been for the man and the Wolfhound, it had undoubtedly been a close
call for the child. There were great rejoicings on the big
Australian liner during the rest of that sunshiny Sunday, and you
may imagine that Finn came in for a good deal of flattering
attention. But he paid small heed to this. What did make his heart
swell within him, till his great chest seemed scarcely big enough
to hold it, was the little talk he had with the Master before they
boarded the ship from the lifeboat. The Master had one dripping arm
about Finn's wet shoulder, and held it there with a warm pressure,
while he muttered certain matters in Finn's right ear which sent
hot blood pumping into the Wolfhound's heart. The Master knew that
Finn had done a big thing for love of him that day, and he would
never forget it. Finn would have leaped overboard fifty times to
earn again that pressure about his shoulder, and that low murmur of
loving commendation in his ear. The half-hysterical caresses of
Tim's mother, and the admiring attention of the whole ship's
company were trifles indeed after this.

The voyage to Australia took Finn into a new world in more senses
than one. Nature and the Master had endowed him richly before. This
voyage endowed him with the gift of true love, which he had not
known before; and whereas he had come aboard that ship a very
magnificent Wolfhound, he would leave it, the richer by something
which would almost be called a soul, a personality developed by
these long weeks of close intercourse with a man, and the final
mental triumph which had ended in his successfully rebelling
against the dominion of instinct, by reason of the completeness of
his devotion to the Master.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XII

THE PARTING OF THE WAYS

If Finn had been transported on a magic carpet and in an instant of
time, from England to that part of Australia in which he did
eventually land, the first few months he spent in the land of the
Southern Cross would have been a desperately unhappy time. As it
was, he landed under the influence of six weeks of steady character
development, his whole being dominated by the warm personal
devotion to the Master which had taken the place with Finn of mere
friendly affection. And that made all the difference in the world,