oment later, still
watching and waiting. The man smiled.

"Well, sonny," he said, with a chuckle; "you play a mighty safe
game, don't you? You're not takin' any chances on the cards. I
believe you reckon I've got the joker up my sleeve, hey? But you're
wrong, 'cos me sleeves is rolled up. But you've got a tidy twist on
ye for mutton, all the same, an' I reckon it's lucky for you I
killed that staked ewe. Now, how d'ye like plain damper? Just see
how Wallaby Bill's tombstones strike ye!"

As he spoke, the man called Wallaby Bill flung Finn a solid chunk
of very indigestible damper, which the Wolfhound gratefully
disposed of with two bites and three gulps, before plainly asking
for more. This was Finn's first taste of food other than raw meat
for some months, and he enjoyed it.

"Well, say, Wolf, I suppose your belly has a bottom to it,
somewhere, what? Here; don't mind me; take the lot!"

With this, having first broken up a good large section of damper in
it, he pushed the dish along the dry grass as far as he could in
Finn's direction, with all that was left of the meat cooked that
evening, a fairly ample meal for a hound, apart from what had come
before. The boundary-rider lay on the ground to push the dish as
far toward Finn as he could, and then recovered his sitting
position, and pretended to become absorbed in the filling of a
pipe, while continuing to watch Finn out of the corner of his eyes.
The dish was now perhaps three yards from where Bill sat, and a
yard and a half from Finn. The man appeared to be wrapped up in his
own concerns, and Finn's hunger was far from being satisfied. Very
cautiously, then, he advanced till he could reach the lip of the
dish with his teeth; then, still moving with the most watchful
care, he gripped the tin dish and softly drew it back about a
couple of feet. Then he began to eat from it, the upper halves of
his eyes still fixed upon the half-recumbent figure of the man, who
was now contentedly smoking and pulling Jess's ears.

Finn polished the tin dish clean and bright, and then retired into
the shadows.

"There's gratitude for you!" growled Bill. But he did not move,
being the knowledgeable person with animals that he was. Finn had
only gone as far as the water-hole he had seen, some thirty or
forty yards from the shanty. There the Wolfhound drank his fill,
and drew back, licking his jaws with zest, and feeling happier and
better than he had felt since the day of his part