lled for himself--a small kill, and not far from home,
but a kill, none the less, that required a certain agility, of
which he already found himself quite capable. In the matter of
strength and vital energy the Wolfhound had immense reserves to
draw upon--greater reserves, really, than any of the wild folk
possessed; for, in his youth, he had never known scarcity of food,
or lack of warmth, or undue exposure; and, on the contrary, his
system had been deliberately built up and fortified by the best
sort of diet that the skill and science of man could devise. Finn
could not have stood as much killing as a dingo, and still have
lived; for the dingo is as hard an animal to kill as any that walks
upon four legs. But, as against that, the Wolfhound could have
stood a far greater living strain than any dingo. He had more to
feed upon in himself. For actual toughness under murderous assault
a dingo could have beaten Finn; yet in a test of staying power, an
ordeal of long endurance, the Wolfhound would have won easily, by
reason of his greater reserve of strength and vitality.

From this point onward, Finn's wounds troubled him but very little,
and in the healing air of that countryside they soon ceased to be
apparent to the eye. An ordinary dingo would assuredly have been
obliged to fight many fights before obtaining ascendancy over the
Mount Desolation pack; but the mastery fell naturally to Finn
without calling for any effort upon his part. He had slain the
redoubtable old leader and tyrant of the pack. He had soundly
trounced one of the strongest among the fully-grown young dingoes,
Black-tip, and killed another in single-handed fight against two.
Now, he administered condign punishment to two or three young bucks
who ventured to attempt familiarity with Warrigal, but for fighting
he was not called upon. Most of the pack had taken good measure of
his prowess on the night of the slaying of Lupus, and that was
enough for them, so far as mastery went. Further, the pack found
Finn a generous leader, a kingly sort of friend; slow to anger, and
merciful even in wrath; open as the day, and never, in any
circumstances, tyrannical or aggressive. Then in the matter of his
kills, Finn was generosity itself. As a hunter of big game he was
more formidable than any three dingoes, and, withal, never
rapacious. Three portions he would take from his kill; one to
satisfy his own hunger, one for Warrigal to satisfy her hunger
upon, and a thi