MATED
Finn knew the life of his own range pretty well, and was more
familiar with the life of the wild generally than any other hound
of his race has been for very many generations. Yet, when he
contentedly took up the back-blocks trail with Warrigal, after
their supper together upon the bandicoot he had slain, Finn was
absolutely and entirely ignorant of the life of the world in which
the handsome dingo had spent her days and attained her high
position as the acknowledged belle and beauty of her range. One
hour afterwards, however, he knew quite a good deal about it.
Possibly from a sense of gallantry, or it may have been because the
trail was a new one to him, Finn trotted slightly behind his mate,
his muzzle about level with her flank. His great bulk was less
noticeable now in relation to the size of his companion, partly by
reason of the coquettish pride which puffed out Warrigal's fine
coat and the lofty way in which she pranced along, and partly
because Finn had now adopted his usual trailing deportment and
exaggerated it a little, owing to his being on a strange trail. He
went warily, with hind-quarters carried well under him ready for
springing, and that suggestion of tenseness about his whole body
which made it actually, as well as apparently, lower to the ground
than when he stood erect. As for Warrigal, she trod a home trail,
and one in which she was accustomed to meet with deferential
treatment from all and sundry. The law of her race prevented a male
dingo from attacking her, and no female in that countryside would
have cared to face Warrigal in single combat.
The country grew wilder and more rugged as the newly-mated pair
advanced, and as they drew near the foot-hills surrounding Mount
Desolation, the bush thinned out, and the ground became stony, with
here and there big lichen-covered boulders standing alone, like
huge bowls upon a giants' green. Then came a patch of thin,
starveling-looking trees, mere bones of trees, half of whose skin
was missing. Suddenly Warrigal gave a hard, long sniff, and then a
growl of warning to Finn. She would have barked if she had known
how, but her race do not bark, though they can growl and snarl with
the best, and, besides, have a peculiar cry of their own which is
not easy to describe other than as something midway between a howl
and a roar. Finn recognized the growl as warning clearly enough,
and all his muscles were gathered together for action on the
instant; but he had no idea what sort of danger to expect, or
whether it was danger or merely the need of hunting care that his
mate had in mind. He knew all about it some two seconds later,
however.
The starveling trees, with the mean, wiry scrub that grew between
them, had served as cover for two lusty males of Warrigal's tribe--
cousins of hers they were, as a matter of fact, though she had
never known the kinship--both of whom had waked that day to the
fact that Warrigal was eminently desirable as a mate. Now, in one
instant, they both flew at Finn, one from either side of the trail
on which he trotted with Warrigal. Warrigal herself slid forward, a
swiftly-moving shadow, her brush to the earth, her hind-quarters
seeming to melt into nothingness, as the jaws of her cousins
flashed behind her on either side of Finn's throat. Then, when
there were a dozen paces between herself and her new mate, she
wheeled and stopped, sitting erect on her haunches, a well-behaved
and deeply interested spectator.
Finn suffered for his ignorance of what to expect, as in the wild
all folk must suffer for ignorance. It is only in our part of the
world that a series of protecting barriers has been erected between
the individual and the natural penalties attaching to ignorance and
wrong-doing. Some of these barriers are doubtless sources of
justifiable pride, but in the wild the confirmed loafer, for
example, the vicious and idle parasite, is an unknown institution.
The same practically holds good even of humans, when they live
close to Nature in a stern climate, as, for instance, on the
Canadian prairie; but never in great cities, or other places from
which Nature is largely shut out.
The penalty Finn paid was this, that he was cut to the bone upon
his right and his left shoulders by the flashing teeth of his
mate's stalwart young cousins. They had both aimed for the more
deadly mark, the throat, but were not accustomed to foes
of Finn's great height, and had not gauged his stature correctly as
he trotted down the trail. Their own shoulder-bones were a good
foot nearer the earth than Finn's, and his neck towered above the
point their jaws reached when they sprang. Wolf-like, they leaped
aside after the first blow, making no attempt to hold on to their
prey. And now, before the keenly watchful eyes of Warrigal, there
began the finest fight of her experience. Regarding her mate's good
looks she had more than satisfied herself; here was her opportunity
to judge of his prowess, in a world wherein all questions are
submitted to the arbitrament of tooth and claw in physical combat.
And keenly the handsome dingo judged; watchfully she weighed the
varying chances of the fray; not a single movement in all the
dazzling swiftness of that fight but received her studious and
calculating attention, her expert appraisement of its precise
value. As the fight progressed from its marvellously sudden
beginning, her unspoken comments ran somewhat after this fashion--
"He is not so quick as our kind--as yet. He is marvellously strong.
He is not smart enough in the retreat after biting. His jaws are
like the men-folk's steel traps, when they do get home. He misses
the leg-hold every time, and that is surely foolish, for he could
cripple them there in an instant. My teeth and claws! but what a
neck he must have! It is reckless the way he leaves his great legs
unguarded. Save me from traps and gins! Saw dingo ever such a
mighty leap!"
In the first moments of that fight the two dingoes were half drunk
from pride. It seemed certain to them that they would easily
overcome the giant stranger. Indeed, Black-tip, the bigger of the
two, who had a black bush at the end of his fine tail, actually
seized the opportunity of taking a lightning cut at one of the
fore-legs of his cousin in the confusion of a rush in upon the
Wolfhound, feeling that it was as well to get what start he could
in dealing with the remaining claimant for Warrigal's hand. He
counted the Wolfhound dead, and wanted to reduce his cousin's
chances in the subsequent fight that he knew would be waged to
secure possession of Warrigal. It was sharp practice, according to
our standards in such matters, but perfectly justifiable according
to the laws of the wild, where the one thing demanded is ultimate
success--survival. But, though morally justified, Black-tip was
actually at fault, and guilty of a grave error of judgment.
[Illustration: He was backing gradually towards a boulder beside
the trail.]
Finn took much longer than one of Black-tip's kindred would have
taken to realize the exact nature of his situation and to act
accordingly; but, as against that, he was a terrible foe when once
he did settle down to work, and, further, his mighty muscles and
magnificent stature, though they could not justify either
recklessness or slackness--which nothing ever can justify in the
wild--did certainly enable him to take certain liberties in a fight
which would have meant death for a lesser creature. But Finn had
been learning a good deal lately, and now, once he had got into his
stride, so to say, he fought a good deal more in wolf fashion than
he would have done a few months earlier; and, in addition, he had
his own old fashion and powers the dingoes knew not of in reserve.
At first, he snapped savagely upon one side only, leaving his
unprotected side open to the swift lacerations of Black-tip's sharp
fangs. But even then he was backing gradually towards a boulder
beside the trail, and the moment he felt the friendly touch of the
lichen-covered stone behind him his onslaught became double-edged
and terrible as forked lightning.
He was kept too busy as yet to think of death-blows; both dingoes
saw to that for him, their jaws being never far from one side or
the other of his neck or his fore-legs. But though, as yet, he gave
them nothing of his great weight, he was slashing them cruelly
about the necks and shoulders, and once--when Warrigal swore by her
teeth and claws it was--he managed to pluck Black-tip's cousin
bodily from the earth and fling him by the neck clean over a low
bush. A piece of the dingo's neck, by the way, remained in Finn's
jaws, and spoiled half the effect of his next slash at Black-tip's
shoulder. But from that moment Black-tip lost for good and all his
illusion in the matter of the stranger being as good as dead.
When the sorely wounded dingo, who had been flung aside as if he
were a rat, returned to the fray his eyes were like red coals, and
his heart was as full of deadly venom as a death-adder's fangs. His
neck was tolerably red, too; it was from there that his eyes drew
their bloody glare. He crawled round the far side of the boulder,
close to the ground, like a weasel, and, despairing of the
throat-hold, fastened his fangs into one of Finn's thighs, with a view
to ham-stringing, while the Wolfhound was occupied in feinting for a
plunge at Black-tip's bristling neck. It was the death-hold that
Finn aimed at, but the sudden grip of fire in his thigh was a
matter claiming instant attention; and it was then that the
Wolfhound achieved the amazing leap that made Warrigal swear by
traps and gins. He leaped straight up into the air, with the sorely
wounded cousin hanging to his thigh, and Black-tip snapping at his
near fore-leg, and in mid-air he twisted his whole great body so
that he descended to earth again in a coil, with his mighty jaws
closed in the throat of Black-tip's cousin. His fangs met, he gave
one terrible shake of his massive neck and head, and when the dingo
fell from his jaws this time, two clear yards away, its throat was
open to the night air, and it had entered upon the sleep from which
there is no awakening.
Finn was bleeding now from a dozen notable wounds, but it was not
in nature that Black-tip single-handed should overcome him, and
Black-tip knew it. The big dingo ceased now to think of killing,
and concentrated his flagging energies solely upon two points--
getting away alive and putting up a fight which should not disgrace
him in Warrigal's watchful eyes. He achieved his end, partly by
virtue of his own pluck and dexterity, and partly because his smell
reminded Finn of Warrigal, and so softened the killing lust in the
Wolfhound.
Finn could handle the one dingo with great ease, even wounded as he
was, and, because of that smell, he had no particular desire to
kill. Indeed, he rolled Black-tip over once, and could have torn
the throat from him, but caught him by the loose skin and coat
instead and flung him aside with a ferocious, growling snarl, in
the tail-end of which there was a note which said plainly, "Begone,
while you may!"
And Black-tip, with life before him and desire in his heart where
Warrigal was concerned, was exceedingly glad of the chance to bound
off into the scrub with a long, fierce snarl, which he hoped would
place him well in Warrigal's esteem, though he was perfectly aware
that it could not deceive Finn.
Then, when it was quite clear that Black-tip had really gone,
having taken all the fight he could stand, Warrigal stepped forward
mincingly and fell to licking Finn's wounds, with strongly
approving tenderness and assiduity. Her mate had fought valiantly
and doughtily for Warrigal, and she was proud of him; proud, too,
of her own perspicacity and allurements in having drawn him to
herself. A savage creature was Warrigal and a brave and quite
relentless enemy, the marks of whose fangs more than one fighting
member of her race and more than one powerful kangaroo would carry
always. But she was very feminine with it all, and the remarks she
murmured to her great grey lord, while her solicitous tongue
smoothed down the edges of his wounds were sweetly flattering and
vastly stimulating to Finn's passion and his pride.
And then, when between the two busy tongues every wound had
received its share of healing attention and antiseptic dressing,
Warrigal moved slowly off down the trail, throwing a winsome look
of unqualified invitation over her right shoulder to Finn, so that
the Wolfhound stepped grandly after her, with assumed unconsciousness
of his many wounds, as who should say--
"It is nothing, my dear child; nothing at all, this trivial
incident by the way. If there are any more champions of your tribe
about, let them come on while I am in the vein for such sport."
But, as a matter of fact, though it was true he would cheerfully
have fought all night at his mate's bidding, Finn was none the less
glad now to have peace and rest, for the dingo champions' methods
of attack were marvellously swift and telling, and the wounds they
had inflicted, while not very serious, were certainly numerous and
sore.
Immediately below the crest of a sharply rising spur of the great
mountain they came upon the entrance to Warrigal's own den, which
was masked and roofed-in by the spreading roots of a fallen tree.
The mouth of the den was narrow and very low for one of Finn's
stature, but he bent his aching body gladly and followed his mate
in, to find that the den itself was comparatively roomy and capable
of accommodating half a dozen dingoes. As a matter of fact, it had
been the den of Warrigal's mother, but it was more than a year now
since that mother had fallen to a boundary-rider's gun. The father
had gone off to another range with a second wife, and Warrigal's
brothers and sisters had each been vanquished in turn and given to
understand that this den was now the sole and exclusive property of
their big sister.
Finn sniffed curiously all round the walls of the den and, finding
them permeated with the scent of Warrigal and with that scent only,
he lay down there restfully, stretching himself to the full extent
of his great length, and sighing out his pleasure in being at ease.
Warrigal sat gravely erect beside him, admiring the vast spread of
his limbs. From tip of nose to tip of tail he covered practically
the whole width of the den, which was a shade over seven and one
half feet. The dingo looked over her mate's wounds once more,
giving an occasional lick here and there, and then, with a little
grunt of gratified pride and content, she curled herself round,
after circling three or four times, and went to sleep under the lee
of Finn's mighty hind-quarters, her muzzle tucked under the
spreading hair of her tail, and one eye, half opened, resting upon
her lord.
Two hours later, Warrigal rose softly and went out to inspect the
night. She found the world bathed in a shining glory of silken
moonlight; bright as day, but infinitely more alluring and
mysteriously beautiful. After gazing out at this wonderful panorama
for a few minutes and drawing in information through her nostrils
of the doings of the wild, Warrigal sat down on her haunches and
raised her not very melodious voice in the curious dingo cry, which
is a sort of growling howl. Next instant Finn was beside her, with
lolling tongue and sensitively questioning nostrils. She gave him
one sidelong look which seemed to say, "You here? Why, what an odd
coincidence that you also should have waked and come out here! I
wonder why you came!" Not but what, of course, she knew perfectly
well what had brought the Wolfhound to her side. She had called of
good set purpose, but, in her feminine way, she preferred to let it
appear that Finn joined her of his own volition. It may be assumed
that the remark she made to him at this point was a comment upon
the fineness of the night and the undoubted beauty of that
glamorous silvern sheen through which the pair of them gazed out at
Tinnaburra.
In the next minute the two began to play together like young cats,
there on the sandy ledge of moon-kissed stone that stretched for
yards on either side of the den's mouth. Perhaps it was then,
rather than in the afternoon hours which came earlier, that Finn
courted Warrigal. The stinging of his wounds, caused by the rapid,
sinuous movements with which he danced about his mate, seemed only
to add zest to his love-making. They were, after all, no more than
love-tokens, these fang-marks and scratches, and Finn rejoiced in
them as such. He had fought for Warrigal, and was ready and willing
to fight for her again. And this his mate was most sweet to him; so
deft, so agile, and so swift; so strong and supple, and withal so
instant in response to his gallantries. The night air was sweet,
too, to headiness, and the moonlight seemed to run like quicksilver
in Finn's veins. Certainly, he told himself, this new life in the
wild, this life of matehood, was a good thing.
[Illustration]