t it was a
terribly punishing hold upon his neck that Finn's jaws had taken,
and Finn's great claws were planted firmly in the old-man's side
and back. The kangaroo made a desperate effort to free one hind-leg
sufficiently from Finn's clinging weight to be able to take a
raking thrust at the Wolfhound, by shaking him sideways; and if he
had succeeded in this, the result for Finn would have been very
severe. Meantime, however, the whole strength of Finn's muscular
neck and jaws was concentrated upon dragging the kangaroo's head
back, upon breaking his neck, in fact. An old-man kangaroo, such as
this one, is generally able to give a pretty good account of
himself in the face of four or five hounds; but the hounds he meets
are of Jess's type and weight, and not of Finn's sort.

However, it was never known exactly whether or not Finn would have
succeeded in his task of breaking this old-man's neck; for, with a
suddenness which surprised the Wolfhound into suffering momentary
contact with Bill's arm, the boundary-rider slipped into the fight,
having first picked up the old-man's tail so that he could not kick
(a kangaroo knows that if he attempts a kick while his very
serviceable tail is being held up he always topples over on his
side, and is thus made helpless), and then leaned across Finn from
behind, and slit the marsupial's throat with his sheath-knife. Finn
growled fiercely as he felt the weight of the man's arm pressed
across his shoulders, and sprang clear at the same moment that the
kangaroo toppled over dead, Bill's practised hand having severed
its jugular vein. And so the fight ended, without a scratch for
Finn; which, seeing that this was his first kangaroo, and an
old-man, and that many an old-man has stretched as many as four and
five hounds bleeding on the ground before him in less than as many
minutes, must be regarded as a piece of exceptionally good fortune
for the Wolfhound.

With Jess, now, matters were far otherwise; the black hound could
do no more hunting for some time to come. Finn was already
sympathetically licking Jess when Bill turned away from the dead
kangaroo; but, as the man came forward, Finn retreated, his lips
lifted slightly, and his hackles rising. He was not quite sure of
Bill's intentions, and had been greatly disturbed by the pressure
of the boundary-rider's arm across his shoulders. It had brought
with it an instant flashlight picture of an iron-barred cage, and
other matters con