take certain liberties in a fight
which would have meant death for a lesser creature. But Finn had
been learning a good deal lately, and now, once he had got into his
stride, so to say, he fought a good deal more in wolf fashion than
he would have done a few months earlier; and, in addition, he had
his own old fashion and powers the dingoes knew not of in reserve.

At first, he snapped savagely upon one side only, leaving his
unprotected side open to the swift lacerations of Black-tip's sharp
fangs. But even then he was backing gradually towards a boulder
beside the trail, and the moment he felt the friendly touch of the
lichen-covered stone behind him his onslaught became double-edged
and terrible as forked lightning.

He was kept too busy as yet to think of death-blows; both dingoes
saw to that for him, their jaws being never far from one side or
the other of his neck or his fore-legs. But though, as yet, he gave
them nothing of his great weight, he was slashing them cruelly
about the necks and shoulders, and once--when Warrigal swore by her
teeth and claws it was--he managed to pluck Black-tip's cousin
bodily from the earth and fling him by the neck clean over a low
bush. A piece of the dingo's neck, by the way, remained in Finn's
jaws, and spoiled half the effect of his next slash at Black-tip's
shoulder. But from that moment Black-tip lost for good and all his
illusion in the matter of the stranger being as good as dead.

When the sorely wounded dingo, who had been flung aside as if he
were a rat, returned to the fray his eyes were like red coals, and
his heart was as full of deadly venom as a death-adder's fangs. His
neck was tolerably red, too; it was from there that his eyes drew
their bloody glare. He crawled round the far side of the boulder,
close to the ground, like a weasel, and, despairing of the
throat-hold, fastened his fangs into one of Finn's thighs, with a view
to ham-stringing, while the Wolfhound was occupied in feinting for a
plunge at Black-tip's bristling neck. It was the death-hold that
Finn aimed at, but the sudden grip of fire in his thigh was a
matter claiming instant attention; and it was then that the
Wolfhound achieved the amazing leap that made Warrigal swear by
traps and gins. He leaped straight up into the air, with the sorely
wounded cousin hanging to his thigh, and Black-tip snapping at his
near fore-leg, and in mid-air he twisted his whole great body so
that he descended to earth