Finn the wolfhound

by A. J. Dawson

The pack drew in as closely as their cover in the scrub permitted, and crouched, watching the camp-fire. Suddenly, a movement on the part of one of them attracted the attention of the fox-terrier, and he flew out into the scrub, barking furiously. The pack, in crescent formation, retreated perhaps a dozen paces, saliva trickling from their curling lips. The terrier plunged valiantly forward, hopping the first low bushes, as a terrier will when rabbiting or ratting. It was Black-tip who pinned him to the earth, and Warrigal whose fangs next closed upon his body. But Finn smashed the terrier's body in half; and, in an instant, the snarling pack surged over the remains. By the time one of the men had risen and moved forward towards the line of scrub, there positively was not a hair of the dog uneaten. His collar lay there on the ground, between two bushes. For the rest, every particle 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 given a sure account. Further, there is no other such reckless law-breaker as hunger. Rules and the teaching of experience--even inherited experience--are as nothing at all to hunger. Also, these two men beside the dying fire were not erect. But they moved uneasily in their sleep now and again. The man-life was clearly astir in them still; and so even the nearest and most venturesome among the dingoes sat a good hundred yards distant from the camp. And when daylight came, and one of the men stirred on his elbow, and looked up at the sky, the pack retreated slowly, backward through the scrub, till more than double that distance separated them from the living food at which they had been wistfully glaring. There was no anger, no savagery, no vestige of cruelty in their minds and hearts. Finn, it is true, cherished some soreness and resentment where men were concerned; but even in his case this brought only the desire to keep out of man's way; while the rest of the pack felt only instinctive dread and fear of man. But now the feeling which ruled the whole pack, the light which shone in their eyes, the eagerness which brought moisture continually to their half-uncovered fangs while they watched--this was simply physical desire for food, simply hunger.

The man who had been the first to stir, rose slowly, and stretched his arms as though his frame ached, as indeed it did, from a variety of causes. When the first slanting rays of the new-risen sun reached him, they shed their light upon a man on whom physical hardship had laid its searing fingers heavily. His face had a ten days' growth of hair upon it, and was gaunt and haggard, like the rest of him. His clothes hung about him loosely, and were torn and soiled and ragged. Under the bronze tan of sunburn on his face and neck there was the sort of pallor which comes from lack of food; in his eyes--deep sunk in dark-rimmed hollows--was a curious glitter which was not at all unlike the glitter in the eyes of the wild folk who had been watching him during the night. This glitter was of eagerness and want; the expression was wistful, longing, and full of a desire which had become a pain. It was the same expression that shone out from the eyes of the starved Mount Desolation pack. And the causes behind it were the same.

Presently this man woke his companion, who growled at him, as though he resented the attention.

"Time we were on the move, old chap," said the first man. "We can't afford to wait."

The other man sat up, and blinked wearily at the daylight, showing a face to the full as haggard and gaunt as that of his friend.

"By God, I don't know!" he said bitterly. "I don't know whether we can afford to do anything else. Afford! And us carrying a fortune! I said out there that I'd never had good luck before, and--it was right, too. Good luck's not for the likes o' me."

"Oh, yes, it is," said the other man, with an obvious effort at cheerfulness. "You wait till we get our legs under a dinner-table, my boy; then you'll tell another tale about luck. And it will be a dinner-table, too, mark you; no tin pannikins, but silver and glass and linen and flowers, and food----Man, think of the juicy fillet, done to a turn; the crisp pomme rissolé, and--yes, a little spinach, I think, done delicately in the English way; none of your Neapolitan messes. I'm not certain about the bread--whether little crusty white rolls or toast. What? Oh, well, it's no use going the other way, old man; cursing and growsing won't help us any. Come on! Let's have breakfast and get on. I think you're perfectly right about parting this morning. We can take that to be east, where the scrub gets thick, and that to be south. We'll toss who takes which, and one or other of us will strike something before nightfall, you mark my words; and after that it will be easy to pick up the other's trail. Better make the trail as plain as possible as we go along. Come; buck up, Jeff, old man; this will be our last day hungry. I'm going to take my breakfast now."