old wolf alone.

It was not very much of all this that Warrigal managed to convey to
her mate, as they stared out through the grey mist at these strange
creatures, but Finn was profoundly and resentfully impressed by
what he did gather from her. The shuddering way in which she
wriggled her shoulders and shook her bushy coat before turning into
the den for rest after their long play in the moonlight, told Finn
a good deal, and it was information which he never forgot. It did
not seem fitting to the great Wolfhound that his brave, lissom mate
should be moved to precisely that shuddering kind of shoulder
movement by the sight of any living thing, and, now, before
following her into the den, he stepped well forward to the edge of
the flat rock and barked fierce defiance in the direction of old
Tasman and his redoubtable son. Lupus dropped his burden in sheer
amazement, and father and son both faced round in Finn's direction,
and glared at him across the intervening ravine. It was a fine
picture they saw through the ghostly, misty grey half-light, which
already was getting too strong for Tasman's eyes, over which the
nictitating membrane was being drawn nervously to and fro as a mark
of irritation.

[Illustration: Finn was standing royally erect.]

Finn was standing, royally erect, at the extreme edge of his flat
table of rock, from which the side of the gully sloped
precipitately. His tail curved grandly out behind him, carried
high, like his massive head. That head was more than fourteen
inches long, and when, as now, its jaws were parted to the
expression of anger and defiance, and all its wealth of brows and
beard were bristling, like the hair of the grandly curving neck
behind it, and of the massive shoulders, thirty-six inches above
the ground, which supported that neck, the sight of it was
awe-inspiring, and a far more formidable picture than any dingo in
the world could possibly present. Tasman and Lupus glared at this
picture for fully two minutes, while themselves emitting a
continuous snarling growl of singular, concentrated intensity and
ferocity. This savage snarl was not the least among their weapons
of offence and defence. Its ferocity was very cowing in effect, and
had before now gone more than half-way towards deciding a combat.
It introduced something not unlike paralysis into the muscles and
limbs of the lesser creatures of the bush when they heard it; in
hunting, it might almost be said to have play