elplessness, Koala
had lived a very long time, and actually was very well versed in
bush-lore, though he liked to describe himself as the most forlorn
and helpless of beasts. He knew all about the scarceness of big
game and its causes, just as he knew all about the dryness and want
of sap in his own vegetable food; and now, by means of the methods
of communication of which we know nothing, he managed to convey
some of his knowledge to Finn, so that when they separated, Finn
connected the drying up of the Mount Desolation creek with the
hardness of his recent hunting, and the heat and absence of rain
with both. The ordinary season for rain had passed now, and the
full length of Australian summer was before them; a fact of which
the learned Koala said nothing, probably because he did not know
it, or, possibly, because he did not greatly care, being a total
abstainer from drink himself.

It was at about this time that Warrigal herself returned to the
trails. Finn had in no sense failed her as bread-winner, but, game
being scarce, and her children still too young to do any foraging
for themselves worth talking about, Warrigal felt that she owed it
to her mate to share his burdens with him. The pups had already
reached the stage of grovelling about outside the den, and pursuing
the few live things of the insect type who affected that stony
spot. One of them, indeed, had already learned a lesson that would
last him for the rest of his life, regarding the habits, customs,
and general undesirability of the bull-dog ant as play-mate or
prey.

[Illustration: He slung the wallaby over his shoulder and set out
for the mountain.]

It happened, about a week after his meeting with Koala, that Finn
had a stroke of luck in the matter of stumbling upon a badly
wounded wallaby within a couple of miles of the den. In some way
this unfortunate creature had managed to get its right hind-leg
caught in a dingo-trap, to which a heavy clog of wood was attached.
In the course of time the wallaby would have died very miserably,
and already it had begun to lose flesh. But Finn brought a
mercifully sudden death to the crippled creature, and then
proceeded to tear in sunder the limb which held the trap. Having
accomplished this, he slung the wallaby over his shoulder and set
out for the mountain, meaning to allow the family to feast upon
this early kill, while he took a further look round upon the
trails.

Just as Finn, heavily laden, scaled