all the hunting for the den on the first spur.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXIX

TRAGEDY IN THE MOUNTAIN DEN

When Warrigal's puppies were born, Finn, their father, had been in
the Tinnaburra for nearly five months, though he had only known the
Mount Desolation range for some nine or ten weeks. During the whole
of that five months of late winter and spring, not one single drop
of rain had fallen in the Tinnaburra, and with the coming of
Warrigal's children there came also the approach of summer. Finn,
for his part, gave no thought to this question of weather, because
he had quite forgotten that there was such a thing as rain. It had
not rained while he was in the city with the Master, after landing
in Australia. The little that fell during the period of his
imprisonment with the Southern Cross Circus had never touched the
caged Giant Wolf, and he had entirely forgotten what falling rain
felt like. He had slept on the earth ever since his escape from the
circus, and he accepted its dryness as a natural and agreeable
fact.

But both Finn and Warrigal were rather annoyed when, just as the
puppies began to open their eyes and become a little troublesome
and curious, the creek at the foot of Mount Desolation disappeared
through its shingly bed and was seen no more. This meant a tramp of
three and a half miles to the nearest drinking-place, a serious
matter for a nursing mother, whose tongue seemed always to be
lolling thirstily from the side of her mouth. Warrigal would make
the journey to the drinking-place as swiftly as she could, and
drink till she could drink no more. Then during the return journey
concern for her children would set the pace for her, and she would
arrive at the den panting and gasping, and more thirsty than when
she left it; for the weather was already hot, the air singularly
dry, and Warrigal herself in no condition for fast travelling, with
her heavy dugs and body, both amply fed and amply drawn upon in her
capacity of nurse-mother. Finn did his part well and thoroughly,
and there was no lack of good fresh meat in the den on the first
spur, but he could not carry water. Warrigal tried to slake her
mother-thirst by means of an extra heavy meat diet, but though she
knew it not, this only aggravated her continual desire for water,
which was Nature's demand for assistance in fitting her to
discharge adequately her duty to her children. And so, during all
this time, Finn's mate found herself ob