red old-man plunged straight down the steep gully, and
then, fearing to attempt the comparatively slow process of mounting
the other side, turned at a tangent and bounded along the bottom of
the gully. With a gasping bark, as of triumph, Jess wheeled after
him, and the roan mare, unable to turn quite so swiftly, left Finn
to shoot ahead for the first time, perhaps fifteen paces behind
Jess.

But, unfortunately for the kangaroo, this was a blind gully, and
Jess knew it. Two minutes later the old-man found himself facing a
quite precipitous rocky ascent at the gully's end, and so, there
being no alternative that he could see, he turned at bay to face
his pursuers. Jess was tremendously excited by the three-mile
chase, and it may be that the sound of Finn's powerful strides
behind her gave the black hound more than ordinary recklessness. At
all events, with practically no perceptible slackening of speed,
she flew straight for the old-man's throat, and received the cruel
stroke of his hind-leg fairly upon her chest, being flung backwards
fully five yards, with blood spouting from her.

Now, although Finn had never seen a kangaroo before, and never
hunted bigger game than the fox he killed in Sussex, yet he had a
full view of poor Jess's terrible reception, and with him, as with
all his kind, action follows thought with electrical swiftness.
Finn saw in that instant exactly the old-man's method of defence:
the cow-like kick, with a leg strong enough to propel its weighty
owner five-and-twenty feet in a bound, and armed at its extremity
with claws like chisels. Seeing this, and acting upon the hint it
conveyed, were a single process with Finn. He swerved sharply from
his course, and then leaped with all his strength for the old-man's
throat from the slightly higher level of the gully's bank.

Now, the old-man weighed two hundred and forty pounds, and measured
nine feet from the tip of his snout to the tip of his long tail.
But, as against that, he was sitting still, while Finn came at him
with the tremendous momentum of a powerful spring from higher
ground than that occupied by the kangaroo. And Finn weighed one
hundred and forty pounds odd--not of fat and loose skin, but of
muscle and bone, without a pound of superfluous flesh. He lived
almost entirely on meat. The impact of Finn's landing on the old-man
was terrific; but, be it noted, the kangaroo was not bowled
over, though he did sway for a moment on his haunches. Bu