liged to run over hard,
parched ground at least fourteen miles a day, and often twenty-one,
when it would have suited her, and her puppies also, a good deal
better to have confined her exercise to strolls in the
neighbourhood of the den.

One result of this was that Warrigal's children began to eat meat
at an earlier stage of their existence than would have been the
case if water had been plentiful and near at hand for their mother.
There never were more carnivorous little creatures than these
puppies. At first, of course, their mother saw to it that the meat
they consumed was of a ready-masticated and even a half-digested
sort; but in an astonishingly short while they began to rend and
tear raw flesh for themselves, under the mother's watchful eye; and
from that time on Finn was a very busy hunter. It was probably
because of this unceasing demand for fresh meat in the den on the
first spur that the leader of the Mount Desolation pack was the
first member of it to notice that hunting was becoming increasingly
difficult in that region. Finn's quest was necessarily for large
meat; and at about this time he was discovering to his cost that he
had to go farther and farther afield to find it. It was well enough
for the bachelors and spinsters of the pack, the free-lances of
that clan. The district was still rich in its supply of the lesser
marsupials, rats, mice, and the like; not to mention all manner of
grubs, and insects, and creeping things, among which it was easy
for a single dingo to satisfy his appetite. But a giant Wolfhound,
with a very hungry mate and four ravening little pups, all waiting
eagerly upon his hunting, was quite differently situated.

Finn's hunting took him one evening far enough south and by east to
bring him within half a mile of the boundary-rider's encampment in
which he had lived with Jess. Here he happened upon Koala, who was
softly grumbling to himself while waddling from one tree to
another. Koala, of course, began the usual plaint about his poverty
and inoffensiveness. This was mechanical with him, and he must have
known very well that Finn would not hurt him. As a matter of fact,
the Wolfhound lay down beside the native bear, and they had quite a
long confab upon bush affairs, during which Finn referred in some
way to the growing scarcity of game in that district, and Koala
mournfully added that gum-leaves themselves were by no means what
they had been. But, for all his foolishness and h