When night fell the trail was very warm and fresh, and a quarter of an hour later a light breeze brought news to the pack of a fire not far ahead. This, again, brought pictures to Finn's mind of the encampment from which he had been driven with burning faggots. He smelled again the singeing of his own coat, and that gave him recollection of his time of torture and captivity in the circus. The pack advanced at a foot-pace now, and with the extreme of caution. A few minutes more brought them within full view of a camp-fire, beside which there were stretched, in attitudes eloquent of both dejection and fatigue, two men and a dog; the latter a large, gaunt fox-terrier. For the last ten miles of their trailing the pack had been passing through country which supported a certain amount of timber, and of the curious Australian scrub which seems to be capable of existence--a pale, bloodless sort of life, but yet existence--in the most arid kind of soil, and where no moisture can be discovered. The men had lighted their fire beneath a twisted, tortured-looking tree, in which there certainly was no life, for every vestige of its bark had gone from it, and its limbs were naked as the bones of any skeleton. The pack drew in as closely as their cover in the scrub permitted, and crouched, watching the camp-fire. Suddenly, a movement on the part of one of them attracted the attention of the fox-terrier, and he flew out into the scrub, barking furiously. The pack, in crescent formation, retreated perhaps a dozen paces, saliva trickling from their curling lips. The terrier plunged valiantly forward, hopping the first low bushes, as a terrier will when rabbiting or ratting. It was Black-tip who pinned him to the earth, and Warrigal whose fangs next closed upon his body. But Finn smashed the terrier's body in half; and, in an instant, the snarling pack surged over the remains. By the time one of the men had risen and moved forward towards the line of scrub, there positively was not a hair of the dog uneaten. His collar lay there on the ground, between two bushes. For the rest, every particle of him, including bones, had been swallowed, and was in process of digestion. From beginning to end the whole operation occupied less than four minutes. One of the men had not troubled to rise at all. The pack withdrew to a safe distance while the other man rummaged about among the bushes for the better part of a quarter of an hour. The pack, meanwhile, were hidden among the trees a quarter of a mile away. Then the man found the terrier's collar, and walked back to his fire with it. He walked slowly and stiffly. When he announced to his companion that there were dingoes about, and that they had carried Jock off, the other man only grunted wearily, and turned over on his side. So the first man threw some more wood on the fire, and lowered himself slowly to the ground, moving painfully, and stretching himself out for sleep.