Finn the wolfhound

by A. J. Dawson

In the first moments of that fight the two dingoes were half drunk from pride. It seemed certain to them that they would easily overcome the giant stranger. Indeed, Black-tip, the bigger of the two, who had a black bush at the end of his fine tail, actually seized the opportunity of taking a lightning cut at one of the fore-legs of his cousin in the confusion of a rush in upon the Wolfhound, feeling that it was as well to get what start he could in dealing with the remaining claimant for Warrigal's hand. He counted the Wolfhound dead, and wanted to reduce his cousin's chances in the subsequent fight that he knew would be waged to secure possession of Warrigal. It was sharp practice, according to our standards in such matters, but perfectly justifiable according to the laws of the wild, where the one thing demanded is ultimate success--survival. But, though morally justified, Black-tip was actually at fault, and guilty of a grave error of judgment.

He was backing gradually towards a boulder beside the trail.

Finn took much longer than one of Black-tip's kindred would have taken to realize the exact nature of his situation and to act accordingly; but, as against that, he was a terrible foe when once he did settle down to work, and, further, his mighty muscles and magnificent stature, though they could not justify either recklessness or slackness--which nothing ever can justify in the wild--did certainly enable him to take certain liberties in a fight which would have meant death for a lesser creature. But Finn had been learning a good deal lately, and now, once he had got into his stride, so to say, he fought a good deal more in wolf fashion than he would have done a few months earlier; and, in addition, he had his own old fashion and powers the dingoes knew not of in reserve.

At first, he snapped savagely upon one side only, leaving his unprotected side open to the swift lacerations of Black-tip's sharp fangs. But even then he was backing gradually towards a boulder beside the trail, and the moment he felt the friendly touch of the lichen-covered stone behind him his onslaught became double-edged and terrible as forked lightning.

He was kept too busy as yet to think of death-blows; both dingoes saw to that for him, their jaws being never far from one side or the other of his neck or his fore-legs. But though, as yet, he gave them nothing of his great weight, he was slashing them cruelly about the necks and shoulders, and once--when Warrigal swore by her teeth and claws it was--he managed to pluck Black-tip's cousin bodily from the earth and fling him by the neck clean over a low bush. A piece of the dingo's neck, by the way, remained in Finn's jaws, and spoiled half the effect of his next slash at Black-tip's shoulder. But from that moment Black-tip lost for good and all his illusion in the matter of the stranger being as good as dead.

When the sorely wounded dingo, who had been flung aside as if he were a rat, returned to the fray his eyes were like red coals, and his heart was as full of deadly venom as a death-adder's fangs. His neck was tolerably red, too; it was from there that his eyes drew their bloody glare. He crawled round the far side of the boulder, close to the ground, like a weasel, and, despairing of the throat-hold, fastened his fangs into one of Finn's thighs, with a view to ham-stringing, while the Wolfhound was occupied in feinting for a plunge at Black-tip's bristling neck. It was the death-hold that Finn aimed at, but the sudden grip of fire in his thigh was a matter claiming instant attention; and it was then that the Wolfhound achieved the amazing leap that made Warrigal swear by traps and gins. He leaped straight up into the air, with the sorely wounded cousin hanging to his thigh, and Black-tip snapping at his near fore-leg, and in mid-air he twisted his whole great body so that he descended to earth again in a coil, with his mighty jaws closed in the throat of Black-tip's cousin. His fangs met, he gave one terrible shake of his massive neck and head, and when the dingo fell from his jaws this time, two clear yards away, its throat was open to the night air, and it had entered upon the sleep from which there is no awakening.

Finn was bleeding now from a dozen notable wounds, but it was not in nature that Black-tip single-handed should overcome him, and Black-tip knew it. The big dingo ceased now to think of killing, and concentrated his flagging energies solely upon two points--getting away alive and putting up a fight which should not disgrace him in Warrigal's watchful eyes. He achieved his end, partly by virtue of his own pluck and dexterity, and partly because his smell reminded Finn of Warrigal, and so softened the killing lust in the Wolfhound.

Finn could handle the one dingo with great ease, even wounded as he was, and, because of that smell, he had no particular desire to kill. Indeed, he rolled Black-tip over once, and could have torn the throat from him, but caught him by the loose skin and coat instead and flung him aside with a ferocious, growling snarl, in the tail-end of which there was a note which said plainly, "Begone, while you may!"