keynote of Lupus's character was the fact
that he had never met a creature he could not overcome. He had
never tasted defeat, unless, conceivably, in his young days, from
old Tasman. It did not occur to him that any creature could face
him in serious combat and survive.

Before Lupus touched the first loose stone of the trail leading up
the hill to Warrigal's den, the people of the scrub below were all
aware of his passage, and Black-tip, with seven other dingoes who
did not happen to be away hunting, were following up the same
trail, in fan-shaped formation, and at a respectful distance behind
the master of the range. Half-way up the rugged side of the spur,
his unbeaten insolence betrayed Lupus into what the wild folk
considered an unsportsmanlike and stupid mistake. He paused for a
moment, and bellowed forth a threatening and peremptory
announcement of his coming in the form of a hoarse, grating howl of
challenge which could have been heard a mile away. Then he
proceeded on his upward way slowly, because he was fully fed,
carelessly, because he had never known defeat, but with
determination, because he was bent upon ridding the range of one
who had flung defiance at him across the gully, and because, the
more he thought of it, and recalled various small matters of recent
experience and connected with the trail he then followed, the more
ardent became his desire to possess Warrigal for a mate.

Warrigal's friendly warning to Finn was not needed. In the same
instant that Lupus's hoarse cry fell upon his ears he was awake and
alert, and perfectly conscious as to the source of the cry. He knew
that it came from the great wolf-dingo, whose passage he had
challenged in the dawning of that day. He recognized the voice, and
read clearly enough the meaning of the cry. He knew that this was a
more considerable enemy than any he had faced as yet, and there was
time in the moment of his waking for regret to flash through his
mind that the challenge should have come now, while his whole body
was scarred with unhealed wounds, and his left thigh was stiff from
the punishing slash of the kangaroo's mailed foot. In the next
moment he was outside the mouth of the den, his deep, fierce bark
rending the silence of the night. The eight dingoes who followed in
Lupus's trail heard the bark, and glanced one at another in meaning
comment thereon. Never was a leader of men or beasts more cordially
hated than Lupus. There was not a dingo wh