animal which lives with men has a certain kind of
sleekness or softness about it. It may be imagined that Finn did
not have much of this when he escaped from the Southern Cross
Circus. And in the period which followed that escape, although he
had, in a sense, associated with a man and a man's dog, yet there
had not been much in the life of the boundary-rider's camp to make
for sleekness. Nevertheless, when Finn first met his mate,
Warrigal, there had lingered about him still a kind of trimness, a
suggestion of softness, far different, indeed, from that of the
ordinary domesticated house-dog; but yet, in its own way, a sort of
sleekness. Not a vestige of this remained now. Though he fed well
and plentifully, and his life was not a hard one, since he only did
that which pleased him, yet Finn had acquired now the hard, spare
look of the creatures of the wild. In his alertness, in the blaze
of his eyes, and the gleam of his fangs when hunting, in his
extreme wariness and in the silence of his movements, and his
deadly swiftness in attack, Finn had become one of his mate's own
kindred. He differed from them in his great bulk, his essentially
commanding appearance, in his dignity, and in a certain lordly
generosity which always characterized him. He never disputed; he
never indulged in threats or recrimination. He gave warning, when
warning was needed; he punished, when punishment was needed; and he
killed, if killing was desirable; making no sort of fuss about
either process. Also, upon occasion, though not often, he barked.
Otherwise, he was thoroughly of the wild kindred, and the
unquestioned master of the Mount Desolation range.

Some six or seven weeks after his arrival upon that range, Finn
began to notice that Warrigal was changing in some way, and he did
not like the change. It seemed to him that his mate no longer cared
for him so much as she had cared. She spent more time in lying
about in or near the den, and showed no eagerness to accompany him
in his excursions, or to gambol with him, or even to lie with him
on the warm, flat ledge outside the den. She seemed to prefer her
own company, and Finn thought her temper was getting unaccountably
short, too. However, life was very full of independent interest
for the Wolfhound, and it was only in odd moments that he noticed
these things. One night he was thoroughly surprised when Warrigal
snarled at him in a surly manner, without any apparent cause at
all, unless beca