food
had been almost entirely of the grub and insect kind, and Finn, for
the first time in his life, had spent long hours in trying to ease
the craving within him by gnawing at dry roots. The great Wolfhound
had more stamina than any of the dingoes; he had greater resources
within himself than they had, and was endowed, by Nature and
upbringing, with a superb constitution. But, as against that, he
needed far more food than was required by the others, and at a full
meal would have eaten twice as much as the biggest of them. Also,
he suffered, though his body was the stronger for it, for the fact
that he had never before known want.

In appearance, the members of the pack had suffered a wondrous
change in these two weeks. Even Warrigal's fine coat had lost every
trace of the gloss which had made it beautiful, and the iron-grey
hairs of Finn's dense, hard coat had taken on the character of dry
bristles, while his haunch-bones were two outstanding peaks, from
which his back fell away at an acute angle to the root of his tail,
where once a level pad of flesh had been. Now the tail seemed to
sprout from a kind of well in his body, and a bird might have
nested in the hollow between his shoulder-blades, which once had
been flat as the top of a table. His back, too, which had been
broad and flat, was like the ridge of a gunyah now, from one end of
which his neck rose gauntly, and appeared to be of prodigious
length. His ribs were plain to see on either side his hollow
barrel, and over them the loose skin rolled to and fro as he ran or
walked. The eyes of every member of the pack were deeply sunken and
ablaze with a dry light, half wistful and half fierce, and more
awe-inspiring than any form of full-fed rage could be. They ran in
open order now, and when one happened to run unusually close to
another, that other would snarl or growl, and, sometimes, even
snap, with bitter, furtive, half-fearful irritability.

To this rule there was one exception. Warrigal ran steadily in the
shadow cast by Finn's big, gaunt frame, her muzzle about level with
his elbow. Black-tip kept about the same level on Finn's other
side, but a good deal farther off, and the others straggled in
fan-shaped formation to the rear, scouting at times to one side or
the other in quest of insects and snakes, or any other living thing
that fangs could crush. As to digestion, the pack had no concern
regarding any such detail as this. Their one test of edibility w