ided that what he saw was not good, that it boded ill for
his future comfort and well-being. The simple fact was that he had
outraged all the proprieties of the wild in that quarter, and was
being severely ostracised in consequence. The lesser creatures were
still sharper of scent and hearing than he was, and their senses
all made more acute by their fear and indignation, they succeeded
in keeping absolutely out of the Wolfhound's sight. It was
shortly after midnight when a crow and a flying-fox saw Finn curl
down to sleep in his sandy gully, and, by making use of the curious
system of animal telepathy, of which even such ingenious humans as
Mr. Marconi know nothing, they soon had the news spread all over
the range. The lesser marsupials and other groundlings were glad to
have this intelligence, and the approach of dawn found them all
busily feeding, watchful only with regard to the ordinary enemies
among their own kind, the small carnivorous animals and the snake
people. Indeed, they fed so busily that a pair of wedge-tailed
eagles who descended among them with the first dim approach of the
new day, obtained fat breakfasts almost without looking for them, a
fact which, unreasonably enough, earned new hatred for Finn among
the circle upon which the eagles swooped.

"If that great brute had not obliged us to feed so hurriedly,
_this_ wouldn't have happened!" a mother bandicoot thought, as she
gazed out tremulously from her den under a rotten log upon the
specks of hair and blood which marked the spot where, a few moments
before, that fine strapping young fellow, her only son, had been
busily chewing grubs.

For another three days Finn continued in his old hunting-ground,
and during the whole of that time he had to content himself with a
diet consisting exclusively of rabbit meat. Indeed, during the last
couple of days he found that even the despised rabbit required a
good deal of careful stalking, so deeply had the fear and hatred of
the Wolfhound penetrated into the minds and hearts of that
particular wild community. If it had not been for the rabbits'
incorrigible habit of forgetting caution during the hours of
twilight and daybreak, Finn might have gone hungry altogether.
Apart from their hatred and resentment, the wild people of that
range felt that the giant's madness might return to him at any
moment, and that for this reason alone it would be unsafe to permit
of any relaxation in their attitude towards him.