e of
him, including bones, had been swallowed, and was in process of
digestion. From beginning to end the whole operation occupied less
than four minutes.

One of the men had not troubled to rise at all. The pack withdrew
to a safe distance while the other man rummaged about among the
bushes for the better part of a quarter of an hour. The pack,
meanwhile, were hidden among the trees a quarter of a mile away.
Then the man found the terrier's collar, and walked back to his
fire with it. He walked slowly and stiffly. When he announced to
his companion that there were dingoes about, and that they had
carried Jock off, the other man only grunted wearily, and turned
over on his side. So the first man threw some more wood on the
fire, and lowered himself slowly to the ground, moving painfully,
and stretching himself out for sleep.

During the night the pack scoured every inch of the scrub within a
radius of one mile from the camp of the two men; and for their
reward they obtained precisely nothing at all, beyond a few, a very
few, grubs and insects, the eating of which served to temper as
with fire the keen edge of their hunger. The hours immediately
preceding daylight found most of them sitting on their haunches, in
a scattered semicircular line, in the scrub, glaring through the
darkness at the two sleeping men, and their now expiring fire. I
should like to be able to say exactly what they looked for, what
they hoped for, in connection with the men; but that is not
possible. In addition to connecting men-folk with guns and traps,
and fear of an instinctive and indescribable kind, most of the pack
also connected men with food, with sheep, and other domesticated
animals which dingoes can eat. Finn, more than any of them,
connected men-folk with food. But, as against that, Finn also
connected them with torture and suffering, with hostility and
abuse. Finn sat farther from the camp-fire than any of the others.

To your truly carnivorous animal, like the dingo, all things that
live, and have flesh on their bones and blood in their veins, are a
form of food, food at its best, living food. Therefore, the two men
must have appealed to the pack as food. But, for their kind, man is
generally speaking forbidden food, and unobtainable; so long, at
all events, as he can maintain his queer, erect attitude. But men
have lain down in the bush to die before to-day, again and again;
and of these the dingoes, as well as the crows, have g