an ant to an emu, that by any
possibility could represent food. Meanwhile the warm trail of the
man ahead kept hope and excitement alive in them, though that man
would have said that he was about as poor a source of hopefulness
as any creature in Australia. To be sure, he had never thought of
himself in the light of food. The dingoes had.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXXII

IN THE LAST DITCH

It was in the midst of the pitiless heat which comes a couple of
hours after midday, and is harder to bear than the blaze of high
noon, that the man who was heading due east abandoned his swag. He
had rested for the better part of an hour directly after noon, and
had two mouthfuls from his water-bottle, one before and one after
his rest. While he rested, the half-pack, headed by Finn and
Warrigal, had rested also, and more completely, hidden away in the
scrub, a quarter of a mile and more from the man whose trail they
followed. Two of them, Warrigal and another, watched with a good
deal of interest the burial of the swag beneath a drought-seared
solitary iron-bark. No sooner was the man out of sight--he walked
slowly and with a somewhat staggering gait now--than the pack
unearthed his swag with quick, vicious strokes of their feet, and
laid it bare to the full blaze of the afternoon sunlight. In a few
moments they had its canvas cover torn to ribbons, and bitter was
their disappointment when they came to turn over its jagged mineral
contents between their muzzles, and discovered that even they could
eat none of this rubbish.

It is fair to suppose that within a couple of hours of this time
the man finally lost the brave remnant of hope with which he had
set out that day. The pack did not reason about this, but they felt
it as plainly as any human observer could have done, and the
realization brought great satisfaction to each one of them. It was
not that they bore the faintest sort of malice against the man, or
cherished any cruel feeling for him whatever. He was food; they
were starving; and his evident loss of mastery of himself brought
food nearer to the pack.

The man's course was erratic now; he tacked like a vessel sailing
in the wind's eye; and his trail was altered by the fact that his
feet were dragged over the ground instead of being planted firmly
upon it with each stride he took. The pack were not alone in their
recognition of the man's sorry plight. He was followed now by no
fewer than seven carrion-crow