ft of her sex,
showing exaggerated signs of weakness and distress. "Well, then,
why not come with me?" barked Finn in reply, fidgeting about her on
his toes. Jess pleaded for delay, and licked his nose most
persuasively. But Finn's mind was made up, and he turned his
shoulder coldly upon the bitch, while still waiting for some sign
of yielding on her part. But Jess was bound to her post by ties far
stronger than any consideration of her own comfort or well-being;
and, as a matter of fact, forty Wolfhounds would not have moved her
from that verandah--alive. Also, of course, she had not Finn's
violent distaste for the neighbourhood of man and his works. She
had never been in a circus. She had never been suddenly awakened
from complete trust in mankind to knowledge of the existence of mad
man-beasts with hot iron bars; so Finn would have told her.

In the end, Finn gave a cold bark of displeasure and trotted off
into the gathering twilight, leaping the fence and plunging into
the bush the moment he had passed the last house of the township.
Half an hour later he killed a fat bandicoot, who was engaged at
that moment in killing a tiny marsupial mouse. A quarter of an hour
after that, Finn lay down beside the ashes of the fire before the
gunyah, his kill between his fore-legs. He rested there for a few
minutes, and then, tearing off its furry skin in strips, devoured
the greater part of the bandicoot before settling down for the
night; as much, that is, as he ever did settle down, these days.
His eyes were not often completely closed; less often at night,
perhaps, than in the daytime. But he dozed now, out there in the
clear patch where the gunyah stood, free of all thoughts of men and
cages. And the bush air seemed sweeter than ever to him to-night
after his brief stay in the man-haunted township.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXIII

THE OUTCAST

For nine consecutive days and nights Finn continued to regard the
empty gunyah in the clear patch as his home, to eat there, and to
rest there, beside the ashes of the fire, or in the shadow of the
shanty itself. And still Jess and her man came not, and the
Wolfhound was left in solitary possession. Once, when the heat of
the day was past, Finn trotted down the trail to the township, and
peered long and earnestly through the dog-leg fence in the
direction of the "First Nugget." But he saw no trace of Jess or her
man; and, for his part, he was glad to get back to the clea