s; big, black, evil-looking birds, who
circled in the air behind and above him, swooping sometimes to
within twenty or thirty feet of his head, and cawing at him in a
half-threatening, half-pleading manner, while their bright, hard
eyes watched his eyes avidly, and their shiny beaks opened and shut
continually to admit of hoarse cries. The pack resented the
presence of the crows, but were well aware that, when the time
came, these harbingers of death could be put to flight in a moment.

When darkness fell, the man lighted no fire this evening. But
neither did he lie down. He sat with his back against a tree-trunk
and his legs outstretched; and now and again sounds came from his
lips, which, while not threatening, were certainly not cries for
mercy, and therefore in the pack's eyes not signals for an attack.
The man-life was apparently strong in him yet; for he sometimes
flung his arms about, and struck at the earth with the long, tough
stick which he had carried all day. The pack, when they had
unsuccessfully scoured every inch of the ground within a mile of
the man for food, drew in closer for the night's watch than they
had ventured on the previous night, when there had been two men and
a fire. But Finn showed a kind of reserve in this. He lay behind a
bush, and farther from the man than any of the rest of the pack. He
wanted food; he needed it more bitterly perhaps than any of the
others; but all his instincts went against regarding man himself as
food, though man's neighbourhood suggested the presence of food,
and, instinct aside, Finn hated the proximity of humans.

The man slept only in broken snatches during this night. While he
slept, Warrigal and the others, except Finn, crept in a little
closer; but when he turned, or waved one arm, or when sounds came
from his lips, as they frequently did, then the dingoes would slink
backward into the scrub, with lips updrawn, and silent snarls
wrinkling their nostrils. Towards dawn Warrigal set up a long howl,
and at that the man woke with a great start, to sleep no more.
Presently, others of the pack followed Warrigal's lead, and,
staggering to his feet, the man moved forward three steps and flung
a piece of rotten wood in the direction from which the howls came.
Warrigal and her mates retreated for the better part of a hundred
yards, snarling aloud; not from fierceness, but in a kind of
wistful disappointment at finding the man still capable of so much
action, and by s