the canvas, midway between two stakes, easily forced it
up, and crawled under it into the open. When he was half-way out,
the boss's fox-terrier gave one sleepy half-bark, too languid and
indifferent a sound to be taken as a warning; and for the rest,
complete silence paid tribute to the extreme deftness of Finn's
passage through the sleeping camp. But that low, sleepy bark from
the fox-terrier who slept beside the boss's own caravan, served to
stop the beating of Finn's heart for one long moment. In the next
moment, almost as silently as a passing cloud shadow, the great
Wolfhound streaked across the thirty yards of moonlit paddock which
divided the camp from the ring-barked bush, and melted away among
that crowded assembly of tree ghosts. The barbed wire fence of the
paddock was no more than four feet high, and this Finn took in his
stride, without appreciable pause.

The ring-barking of trees admits sunlight and air to the earth, and
this means rich "feed" and a sturdy undergrowth. On the other hand,
the death of the trees introduces a kind of nakedness and publicity
to the bush which naturally is not favoured by wild folk during
daylight. But this does not detract from the merits of ring-barked
country as a night feeding-ground; and Finn was amazed by the
wealth and variety of wild life which he saw as he loped swiftly
through the few miles of bush lying between the circus camp and the
foothills of the mountains beyond. His immediate purpose, of
putting a considerable distance between himself and the place of
his captivity, was too urgent to admit of delays, no matter what
the temptation; and, accordingly, Finn made no pauses. But it added
greatly to the joy of his escape to find himself surrounded by so
great an abundance of creatures which instinct made him regard as
game for him. Upon every hand there were rustlings and whisperings,
tiny footfalls and scufflings among dead leaves and twigs; and here
and there, as the great grey, shadowy Wolfhound swept along between
the white tree-trunks, he had glimpses of rabbits, bandicoots,
kangaroo-rats, and many of the lesser marsupials, all busy about
their different night affairs, all half-paralysed by amazement at
his passage through their midst. Once he heard a venomous spitting
overhead and, as he hurried on, caught a flying glimpse of a native
cat, who had pinned an adventurous young 'possum on the lower limb
of a giant black-butt. Once, too, he was startled into mo