THE DOMESTIC LURE
As Finn drew closer to the camp-fire, the savoury smell of the
stewed mutton the man by the gunyah was eating came sailing down
the breeze into his nostrils, emphasizing his hunger to him, and
reminding him strongly of the days in which carefully cooked foods
had been his portion every day. But the Wolfhound's desire for food
was nothing like so keen a thing as his dread of renewed captivity,
and his approach to the camp-fire was an illustration of the
extreme of animal caution. His powerful limbs were all the time
gathered well under him, prepared for instant flight.
Suddenly and simultaneously two things happened. A log on the fire
broke in half, allowing a long tongue of flame to leap up and light
the ground for fifty yards around, and the kangaroo-hound turned
its greyhound-like muzzle sharply to one side and saw Finn. In the
next instant three things happened together: the man's eyes
followed those of his dog and saw Finn; the dog leaped to its feet
and barked loudly; and Finn jumped sideways and backwards, a
distance of three yards. Then the man said, "By ghost!" and the
kangaroo-hound bounded forward towards Finn.
Now it was not in Finn's nature to run from a dog, and so, as the
boundary-rider did not move, he held his ground. But his recent
experiences had all made for hostility and the fighting attitude
toward other animals; and so, instead of standing upright and
awaiting the salutations of the lesser creature in a courteously
non-committal manner, as he would have done in the old days, Finn
held his hind-quarters bunched well under him ready for springing,
his fore-legs stretched well before him, his jaws slightly parted,
and the lips lifted considerably from his fangs, while eyes and
nostrils, and slightly raised hackles, though making no killing
threat, said very plainly, "Beware! I am not to be trifled with!"
But apparently the black kangaroo-hound was not very greatly
impressed. It is practically certain that this dog knew at a glance
that Finn was not really of the wild kindred; also, she was a brave
creature, a fearless hunter, and a hound who stood twenty-eight
inches at the shoulder; eight inches lower than the giant Wolfhound
it is true, but, even so, taller, bigger, and heavier than a
typical greyhound of her sex. It may be, too, that the
kangaroo-hound was already aware of Finn's sex before he knew hers.
Be that as it may, she showed not the slightest fear of the Wolfhound,
but flew right up to him, barking loudly, and with every sign of
readiness for fight. Finn growled warningly, and, as the stranger
snapped at him, he leaped aside and, turning then, prepared to
administer punishment. It was then, as his jaws parted in anger,
that consciousness of the black hound's sex came to him, in the
subtle way that his kind do acquire such facts, and his jaws
promptly closed upon space. When the kangaroo-hound snapped a
second time, Finn turned his shoulder to her meekly and gave a
little friendly whinny of a whine. This was repeated two or three
times, Finn evading the black hound's snapping jaws (one could see
that her bites no longer meant serious business; they were more
ceremonial than punishing), but showing not the slightest intention
to make reprisals. True, he growled low down his throat every time
the black hound's jaws came together, but the growl was almost
meek, certainly deprecatory, rather than in any sense threatening.
Finn was obeying the law of his kind where the weaker sex is
concerned.
After a minute, the kangaroo-hound began to sniff curiously at Finn
instead of snapping at him, and at this, as though ordered to stand
to attention, the Wolfhound drew himself up proudly, and remained
perfectly still and very erect, his long tail curving grandly
behind him, legs well apart, and his magnificent head carried high,
save when, as opportunity offered, he took a passing sniff at any
portion of the kangaroo-hound's anatomy that happened to come near
his muzzle. He was a fine picture of alertness and masculine canine
pride at this time; but, though obviously prepared for any
emergency, the wiry hair on his shoulders lay flat now, and his
mouth was quite closed.
All this while--these elaborate formalities had occupied no more
than three minutes altogether--the boundary-rider, who was a
knowledgeable person with animals, had been standing quite still
beside his fire, watching Finn and his own dog with intent
curiosity. He had never seen a dog at all like Finn, but he felt
certain Finn was a dog, and not a creature of the wild, if only by
reason of his own black hound's attitude. Also, he was not looking
at the Wolfhound through iron bars. He pictured himself hunting
kangaroo with Finn and Jess (the black hound), and the prospect
pleased him mightily. So now he picked up a piece of mutton from
the dish beside the fire, and took a couple of steps in Finn's
direction, holding the meat out before him, and saying in a
friendly way--
"Come on in, then, good dog! Here, boy! Here then!"
Finn eyed the man hesitatingly for a moment. The meat was tempting.
But Finn's memories and fear were strong, and he moved slowly
backward as the man advanced. For a little distance they progressed
in this wise: the man slowly advancing and calling, Finn slowly
retiring backward, and the kangaroo-hound playing and sniffing
about him in a manner which said plainly that he was hereby invited
to make free of her fireside, and become acquainted with her man.
The man was the first to tire of this, as was natural, and, when he
came to a standstill, he tossed the meat from him to Finn, with a
"Here then, boy; eat it there, if you like." But Jess had no notion
of carrying hospitality as far as all this. She sprang upon the bit
of meat, and growled savagely as her nose grazed Finn's. She had
forestalled the Wolfhound, and was likely to continue to do so,
since the law of their kind prevented him from exerting his
superior strength against her.
Then the man walked slowly back to the shanty, calling both dogs
over his shoulder as he went. Jess obediently ran to him, and then
danced back, encouragingly, to Finn. Finn advanced with her till
the man reached the fire and resumed his seat on the ground. Then
Finn stopped dead, his hind-quarters well drawn up and ready for a
spring; and no blandishment that Jess could exercise proved
sufficient to draw him closer to the fire. Seeing this, the man
called Jess sharply, after a while, and ordered her to lie down
beside him, which she did. Then he cut off a good-sized chunk of
meat and tossed it to Finn, saying, "Here, good dog; come in and
feed then!" He carefully threw the meat to a point about three
yards nearer the fire than where Finn stood, but still a good six
or seven paces from it. Finn watched the meat fall and sniffed its
fragrance from the dry grass. The man, after all, was sitting down,
and humans always occupied quite a long time in rising to their
feet. Very slowly, very warily, and with eyes fixed steadily on the
man, Finn covered the three yards between himself and the meat,
and, as he seized it in his jaws, moved backward again at least one
yard.
The warm mutton was exceedingly grateful to Finn, and he showed
little hesitation about advancing the necessary four or five feet
to secure a second and larger piece thrown down for him by
the man. But again he withdrew about a yard, before swallowing it.
Then the man held another piece of meat out to him at arm's length,
and invited him to come and take it for himself. Finn advanced one
yard, and then definitely stopped, at, say, eight paces from the
man's hand, and waited, as one who would say: "Thus far, and no
farther; not an inch farther!" Still the man held the meat, and
would not throw it. Finn waited, head held a little on one side,
black eyes fixed intently on the man's face. Then, slowly, he
lowered his great length to the ground, without for an instant
removing his gaze from the boundary-rider's face, and lay with
fore-legs outstretched, watching and waiting, and resting at the
same time. Evidently the man regarded this as some sort of a step
forward, for he yielded now, and flung the piece of meat so that it
fell beside Finn's paws. The great Wolfhound half rose in gulping
down the meat, but resumed his lying position a moment later, still
watching and waiting. The man smiled.
"Well, sonny," he said, with a chuckle; "you play a mighty safe
game, don't you? You're not takin' any chances on the cards. I
believe you reckon I've got the joker up my sleeve, hey? But you're
wrong, 'cos me sleeves is rolled up. But you've got a tidy twist on
ye for mutton, all the same, an' I reckon it's lucky for you I
killed that staked ewe. Now, how d'ye like plain damper? Just see
how Wallaby Bill's tombstones strike ye!"
As he spoke, the man called Wallaby Bill flung Finn a solid chunk
of very indigestible damper, which the Wolfhound gratefully
disposed of with two bites and three gulps, before plainly asking
for more. This was Finn's first taste of food other than raw meat
for some months, and he enjoyed it.
"Well, say, Wolf, I suppose your belly has a bottom to it,
somewhere, what? Here; don't mind me; take the lot!"
With this, having first broken up a good large section of damper in
it, he pushed the dish along the dry grass as far as he could in
Finn's direction, with all that was left of the meat cooked that
evening, a fairly ample meal for a hound, apart from what had come
before. The boundary-rider lay on the ground to push the dish as
far toward Finn as he could, and then recovered his sitting
position, and pretended to become absorbed in the filling of a
pipe, while continuing to watch Finn out of the corner of his eyes.
The dish was now perhaps three yards from where Bill sat, and a
yard and a half from Finn. The man appeared to be wrapped up in his
own concerns, and Finn's hunger was far from being satisfied. Very
cautiously, then, he advanced till he could reach the lip of the
dish with his teeth; then, still moving with the most watchful
care, he gripped the tin dish and softly drew it back about a
couple of feet. Then he began to eat from it, the upper halves of
his eyes still fixed upon the half-recumbent figure of the man, who
was now contentedly smoking and pulling Jess's ears.
Finn polished the tin dish clean and bright, and then retired into
the shadows.
"There's gratitude for you!" growled Bill. But he did not move,
being the knowledgeable person with animals that he was. Finn had
only gone as far as the water-hole he had seen, some thirty or
forty yards from the shanty. There the Wolfhound drank his fill,
and drew back, licking his jaws with zest, and feeling happier and
better than he had felt since the day of his parting with the
Master, months before.
Slowly, and with only a little less caution than before, Finn now
approached the camp a second time, and heard Bill say to the
kangaroo-hound: "All right, Jess; go to him, then!" In another
moment, Jess came prancing out towards him, and Finn spread out his
fore-legs and lowered his great frame to the earth, while his
hind-quarters remained erect and ready for a pivoting movement. This
was the precise attitude that old Tara, the most gracious lady of her
race, had adopted toward Finn and his brothers and sisters, years
ago in the orchard beside the Sussex Downs, when Finn was still an
unweaned pup, and Tara came to play with him, without a notion that
she was his mother. (Finn's loving little foster-mother, it will be
remembered, had been safely shut up, out of hearing and scent of
the pups.) Jess now imitated Finn's attitude, and when his nose had
almost touched hers she bounded from him sideways and backwards,
sometimes wheeling completely round, and barking with pretended
ferocity, till she stooped again and repeated the process.
Wallaby Bill was pleasantly interested in watching this amiable
performance, but it would have impressed him vastly more if he
could have pictured to himself the sort of spectacle Finn had
presented a couple of days before, when, with foaming jaws,
gleaming fangs, raised hackles, and straining limbs, the great
Wolfhound had pitted himself, with roaring fury, against the
leather-coated man who wielded the hot iron. To an observer who had
known of this, there would have been something at once rather
pathetic and a good deal grotesque about Finn's present kittenish
play with Jess. To lend verisimilitude to the game Finn had to
growl low down in his throat at intervals, while Jess snarled and
barked; but when Finn laid one paw on the kangaroo-hound's curved
back, as he frequently did at different phases of the game, his
touch, for all his huge bulk and weight, was one that would not
have incommoded a new-born pup. The Wolfhound was deft and agile
enough, despite his want of practice in such occupations, but yet,
by reason of his great size, and the hard-bitten, fighting look
which the last few months had given him, and the extreme wariness
of his continuous observation of the reclining Bill; because of
these things, there was more than a hint of grotesqueness about his
gambols, such as one could not find in the antics of his playmate.
Her sex, her smoothness, her smaller size and greater slimness of
build, combined with her evidently complete domestication, made
Jess's foolery sit naturally upon her; and, indeed, her movements
were without exception graceful in the extreme.
Wallaby Bill's pipe had burned itself out before the hounds tired
of their play and stretched themselves upon the ground, Jess lying
a good yard and a half nearer to the fire than Finn ventured. But
Finn moved only very slightly now, when Bill rose slowly to his
feet and stretched his arms, while taking careful observations of
the new-comer. In the bright firelight, he was just able to make
out the bigger among Finn's scars, where the Professor's iron had
burned through the Wolfhound's wiry coat. Finn half rose, with ears
cocked, and muscles ready for the spring, when Bill yawned and
said--
"Well, Wolf, you are the biggest thing in your line ever I did see.
But it seems to me you've been havin' a pretty rough house with
somebody. What township have you been paintin' red, Wolf, hey? Did
ye clear out the town? How many stiffs was there in the dead-house
when you struck the wallaby again, Wolf? I bet you jest made things
hum, old son--my oath--hey!" He took one slow step forward; and Finn
immediately took three backward, in one quick jump. "All right,
sonny; who wants to hurt ye? Keep your hair on now, do. I only want
to get the dish, an' wash up after your royal highness. Save me
soul alive! Can't I move, then? You're too suspicious, Wolf, my
son. I believe you're a bit of a Jew." And then, in a lower tone,
"My oath, but some one's handled you pretty damn meanly before
to-day, I reckon. All right, Wolf, you walk backwards, like a
Salvation Army captain, while I get the dish, an' then we'll both
be safe, an' the dish'll get washed."
Bill's notion of washing up was distinctly primitive. He took a
long drink of tea from the billy, and then used what was left to
rinse out the dish that Finn had polished. Then he wiped it
carefully on his towel, and hung it up inside the gunyah. Finn had
returned to his old place by this time, but hesitated to lie down
while Bill moved about.
"Now, just you take a rest, Wolf," said the boundary-rider,
satirically. "I'm goin' to turn in now, an' I don't attack
thunderin' great grey wolf-dogs while I'm undressin'; not on your
life I don't; so jest you take a rest, son. Look at fat Jess! You
couldn't shift her from that fire with a stock-whip! An' jest you
remember, my boy, that where I sleeps I breakfast--sure thing--an'
where I breakfasts there's apt to be oddments goin' for great big
grey wolf-dogs as well as black kangaroo bitches; so don't you
forget it, Wolf. I'm hopin' to see you in the mornin', mind; and
don't eat Jess by mistake in your sleep. I know she only weighs
about seventy pounds, but if you're careful, an' don't yawn too
sudden-like any time, you'll be able to avoid swallowing her. So
long, son!"
And with that the man retired to his bunk, which consisted of two
flour-sacks stretched on saplings, supported a few inches above the
ground by forked sticks; a very comfortable bed indeed. As for
Finn, the feeling inspired in him by Bill's talk, to say nothing of
Bill's supper, and Bill's fire, and the black hound, this was
something really not far removed from affection; but it was nothing
at all like complete trust. It was the friendliest sort of
gratitude and, while the man's kindly talk rang in his ears,
something very like affection. But it was not trust, and Finn did
not lie down again until his ears had satisfied him that the man
was lying down within the bark shanty. Yet it was not many months
since Finn had faced the whole world of men-folk with the most
complete and unquestioning confidence and trust. So much the
Professor had accomplished in his attempt at "taming" the "Giant
Wolf," you see. But, well fed, and cheered by companionship, Finn
rested more happily that night than he had rested since his parting
with the Master. It was very delightful to slide gradually off into
sleep, with the sound of Jess's regular breathing in his ears, and
the warm glow of the smouldering log fire in his half-closed eyes.
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