e, that she had thought of coming in quest of the great
Wolfhound. Now she eyed him, from her vantage-point, fearlessly,
and with invitation in every line of her lissom form.

Finn sniffed hard, and began a conciliatory whine which terminated
in a friendly bark, as he scrambled up the gully side, his own
thirty-inch tail waving high above the level of his haunches.
Warrigal fled--for ten paces, wheeling round then, in kittenish
fashion, and stooping till her muzzle touched the ground between
her fore feet. But no sooner had Finn's nose touched hers than the
wild coquette was off again, and this time a little farther into
the bush. To and fro and back and forth the shining bushy-coated
dingo played the great Wolfhound with even more of coquettishness
than is ever displayed in human circles; and twilight had darkened
into night when, at length, she yielded herself utterly to his
masterful charms, and nominally surrendered to the suit she had
actually won. As is always the case with the wild folk, the
courtship was fiery and brief, but one would not say that it was
the less passionately earnest for that; and, at the time, Warrigal
seemed to Finn the most gloriously handsome and eminently desirable
of all her sex.

When their relations had grown temperately fond and familiar they
took to the western trail together, and presently Warrigal
"pointed" a big bandicoot for Finn, and Finn, delighted to exhibit
his prowess, stalked and slew the creature with a good deal of
style. Then the two fed together, Finn politely yielding the
hind-quarters to his inamorata. And then they lay and licked and
nosed, and chatted amicably for an hour. After this, Warrigal rose and
stretched her handsome figure to its full length--there was not a
white hair about her, nor any other trace of cross-breeding--her
nose pointing west and by south a little, for the back ranges,
whence she came. When she trotted sedately off in that direction
Finn followed her as a matter of course, though he had never been
this way before. There were no longer any ties which bound him to
his old hunting-ground. It was not in nature to spare a thought for
lugubrious Koala or prickly Echidna, when Warrigal waved her bushy
tail and trotted on before. Finn had never before been appealed to
by the scent of any of the wild people, but there was a subtle
atmosphere about Warrigal's thick red-brown coat which drew him to
her strongly.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXV