As Finn arrived beside the gunyah, Bill appeared at its entrance, yawning and stretching his muscular arms.
"Hullo there, Wolf," he said lazily; "early bird catches the worm, hey? Good on ye, my son."
Finn had stopped dead at sight of the man, and now Jess bounded towards him, full of interest. Finn dropped the rabbit before her, quite prepared to share his breakfast with the kangaroo-hound. That had been his intention, in fact, in bringing his kill back to camp. But to his surprise Jess snatched up the rabbit and wheeled away from him.
"Come in here, Jess! Come in!" growled the man sharply. "Come in here, an' drop it."
Whereupon, Jess trotted docilely up to the humpy, and laid her stolen prize at Bill's feet. Bill whipped out his sheath-knife and, with one or two deft cuts and tugs, skinned the rabbit. The pelt he placed on a log beside the gunyah, and the carcase he cut in half across the backbone. Then he tossed the head half to Jess, and the other, and slightly larger portion, to Finn.
"Fair doos," he said explanatorily. "Wolf's the biggest; and it was his kill, anyway; so he gets the quarters."
So the hounds fed, while Bill washed and prepared his own breakfast. Jess ate beside the bark hut, but Finn withdrew to a more respectful distance, and lay down with his portion of the rabbit some twenty yards from the camp.
After breakfast, the man took a bridle in his hand and set out to find his horse, who carried a bell but was never hobbled. Jess walked sedately one yard behind her man's heels; Finn strolled after them at a distance of fifteen or twenty yards. Occasionally Jess would turn and trot back to the Wolfhound for a friendly sniff; but, while receiving her advances amiably, Finn never responded to her invitations to join her in close attendance upon the man. Once Bill was mounted, Jess seemed satisfied to leave twenty or thirty yards, or even more, between herself and her man; and, this being so, the two hounds ran together and shared all their little discoveries and interests. Bill rode a good many miles that day, always beside a wire fence; and occasionally he would stop, dismount, and busy himself in some small repair, where a fence-post had sagged down, or the wire become twisted or slack.