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 f