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Finn The Wolfhound, a novel by Alec John Dawson |
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Chapter 19. The Domestic Lure |
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_ CHAPTER XIX. 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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