aid her
stolen prize at Bill's feet. Bill whipped out his sheath-knife and,
with one or two deft cuts and tugs, skinned the rabbit. The pelt he
placed on a log beside the gunyah, and the carcase he cut in half
across the backbone. Then he tossed the head half to Jess, and the
other, and slightly larger portion, to Finn.

"Fair doos," he said explanatorily. "Wolf's the biggest; and it was
his kill, anyway; so he gets the quarters."

So the hounds fed, while Bill washed and prepared his own
breakfast. Jess ate beside the bark hut, but Finn withdrew to a
more respectful distance, and lay down with his portion of the
rabbit some twenty yards from the camp.

After breakfast, the man took a bridle in his hand and set out to
find his horse, who carried a bell but was never hobbled. Jess
walked sedately one yard behind her man's heels; Finn strolled
after them at a distance of fifteen or twenty yards. Occasionally
Jess would turn and trot back to the Wolfhound for a friendly
sniff; but, while receiving her advances amiably, Finn never
responded to her invitations to join her in close attendance upon
the man. Once Bill was mounted, Jess seemed satisfied to leave
twenty or thirty yards, or even more, between herself and her man;
and, this being so, the two hounds ran together and shared all
their little discoveries and interests. Bill rode a good many miles
that day, always beside a wire fence; and occasionally he would
stop, dismount, and busy himself in some small repair, where a
fence-post had sagged down, or the wire become twisted or slack.

At such times, while Bill was busy, Finn and Jess would cover quite
a good deal of ground, always within a half-mile radius of the man;
and in these small excursions Finn began to learn a good deal in
the way of bush-craft from the wily Jess. Once she snapped at his
shoulder suddenly, and thrust him aside from a log he was just
about to clamber upon. "'Ware! 'Ware!" said her short bark, with
unmistakable vehemence. As Finn drew back, wonderingly, a short
black snake rose between him and the log, hissed angrily at the
hounds once, and then darted away round the log's butt end. Jess
made some gruff remarks in her throat which could not well be
translated into our tongue; but they sufficed to teach Finn a good
deal. He had now seen a death-adder, the snake whose bite kills
inside of fifteen minutes; and, so much more apt are the dog kind
in some matters than ourselves, that Finn would