166 
ALMOST HUMAN 
SIX HUNDRED VICTIMS. 
A surprising story is told by Mr. J. S. Bacon, of Deepwater, New 
South Wales, about a dingo, or wild dog, that accounted for six hundred 
sheep, besides doing damage hard to estimate to the flocks of the settlers 
of the district, before he was Anally despatched. He was a powerfully- 
built, black dog, with a white star on his chest. He had twice been 
trapped — the first time he left behind him a front paw; the second, a 
toe from a hind foot. Several times he was poisoned, but recovered, 
and he had been chased on horseback, fruitlessly, times without number. 
All his mates, the ordinary dingoes, had fallen victims to the many traps 
laid for him, but he eluded them all. His main home was in some 
secluded mountains on the New England portion of the Great Dividing 
Range, between the heads of the Deepwater and Dundee rivers. From 
there he used to travel at night to the different sheep runs, which spread 
in a half-circle around the foot of those mountains for over twenty miles. 
His lair was so situated that he could reach the middle runs, or those at 
either end, in a sprint of from five to eight miles. He always made a 
bee-line for the dog-proof fences, and then he scratched under, jumped 
over, or bit his way through the wires. His plans were well thought 
out. He would suddenly appear in the middle runs and the slaughter 
would be fearful. On an average he was reckoned to eat a 40-lb. sheep 
every three days. After making things hum in these runs, and turn- 
ing out the neighborhood in a search for him, he would disappear from 
ken for about a week. Then he would make his appearance at one of the 
end runs, and thus his depredations became the bane of the sheep farmers 
of the place. In despair, they clubbed together and offered a bonus of 
£50 for his dead body. Knowing that Mr. Bacon’s losses from dingoes 
had exceeded £1,000, and that he had naturally made a science of their 
destruction, they asked him to devote his time to the task. He con- 
sented, but for a week every effort was useless. The dog knew as well 
as his pursuer where the traps were laid and where danger was writ 
large for him. Then the trapper resorted to an old scheme of his of 
setting a trap under water, wading down stream and jumping straight 
from the river on to his horse, thus leaving no scent at all behind him to 
warn the cunning brute. This succeeded at once, and the delighted 
sheep owners made the honorarium £60, which, as Mr. Bacon observed, 
seemed like getting a little of his own back. 
