In due course Warrigal winded the mother kangaroo, and conveyed
instant warning to Finn and the others by a sudden checking of her
pace. Silent as wraiths between the shadowy tree-trunks then, Finn
and the four dingoes stalked their prey, describing a considerable
circle in order to approach from good cover. To Warrigal's keen
disappointment, they found as they topped a little scrub-covered
ridge that the mother kangaroo was feeding with a mob of seven,
under the guidance of a big, red old-man. Then she conceived the
bold plan of "cutting out" the mother kangaroo from the mob, and
trusting to Finn to pull her down. This plan she conveyed to her
fellow-hunters by means of that telepathic method of communication
which is as yet little comprehended by men-folk. One quick look and
thrust of her muzzle asked Finn to play his independent part, and
another, flung with apparent carelessness across her right
shoulder, bade the three dingoes follow her in the work of cutting
out.
It was a careful, silent stalk until the hunters were within ten
yards of the quarry, and then with a terrifying yowl of triumph, a
living rope of dingoes--four of them, nose to tail--was flung
between the big mother kangaroo and the rest of the mob. The red
old-man gave one panic-smitten look round his flock, and then they
were off like the wind, in big twenty-foot bounds. But the mother
could not bring herself to leap in their direction by reason of the
yowling streak of snapping dingoes which had flung itself between
them. She sprang off at a tangent and, as she made her seventh or
eighth bound, terror filled her heart almost to bursting, as a
roaring grey cloud swept upon her from her right quarter, and she
felt the burning thrust of Finn's fangs in her neck. She sat up
valiantly to fight for her life and the young life in her pouch,
and her left hind-leg, with its chisel claws, sawed the air like a
pump-handle. The dingoes knew that it would be death, for one or
two of them, at all events, to face those out-thrust chisels. They
surrounded the big beast in a snarling, yowling circle, and gnashed
their white fangs together with a view to establishing the
paralysis of terror. But they did not advance as yet. Finn slipped
once, when he tried to take fresh hold, and in that instant the
kangaroo slashed him deeply in the groin. But the wound was her own
death warrant, for it filled the Wolfhound with fighting rage, and
in another instant there was a broken neck between his mighty jaws
and warm blood was running over the red-brown fur of the kangaroo,
as her body fell sideways, with Finn upon it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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