“It can’t be the black wolf!” protested Bear again.

“It has to be!” insisted Sam Hart.

‘It can’t be!’ thought Ernie.   ‘Last night was the wrong night!’   He had last changed into the black wolf seven days ago, so the next transformation was not due for at least another three weeks.

“Look!” said Mel raising his voice to quieten the others.   “All I know is that something chewed the face off Des last night and left Liz a screaming hysteric after waking to find herself awash in Des’ blood!”   Seeing he had cowered the others to silence, he looked back toward Victoria and Samantha, “There’s a policewoman with Liz now, but it might be best if one of you could go over to try to comfort her.”

“I’ll go,” volunteered Victoria and she set off with Mel in the Holden Rodeo, leaving the others to break the news of Des Hutchinson’s death to Brian Home and explain why they hadn’t brought his retarded brother home as planned.

*      *      *

During the ride to the Hutchinson sheep station, Bear and Sam argued incessantly on the question of the guilt or innocence of the black wolf in Des’ killing.   Rut Mel Forbes hardly heard them.   His mind had channelled back to three months earlier when the sheep and cattle stations around Glen Hartwell and Merridale had been raided by a pack of crazed dingoes.   Mel and the local constabulary had hunted the pack in vain as they raided farm after farm killing and devouring the entire stock of sheep or cattle, even butchering the station dogs.   Then the pack had made the mistake of attacking people, wounding Brian Horne and Ernie Singleton and devouring an elderly couple.   Unable to stand back and do nothing any longer, the Melbourne Police Force had sent over a hundred trained riflemen to the country area.   They had tracked the pack to their camp two-thirds of the way up the side of Mount Abergowrie on the northern side of Glen Hartwell, and had blasted the dingoes to pieces.   Although a strong man, not easily upset, Mel had been sickened by the sight of the massacre, the pitiful yelping of the large, yellow dogs as their bodies had been torn apart by the barrage of bullets and buckshot.   But just as shocking was the sight that confronted them after the firing finally ceased.   The carcase of a large, grey-brown bull terrier-headed dog with strange tiger-like stripes running down across its rump and tail.   Although not recognising the strange beast, Mel had realised that he had uncovered an anomaly and had had the massacre site cordoned off and called in Federal Government CSIRO scientists to take charge of the carcase.   They had never reported their finding to Mel, however, with the help of the head librarian of the Glen Hartwell City Library, Glenda Pettyjohn, he had soon located the creature in the Encyclopaedia of Australian Wildlife.   “That’s it all right,” said the grey-haired old lady gazing at the picture in the book that she held, “The thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger.   It has been extinct in Tasmania since 1936 or thereabouts and on the mainland for three thousand years.”   As shocking as that revelation had been, even more shocking was the fact that the “tiger” had not been killed in the hail of bullets that rained down on the dingo pack.   The tiger had had its throat torn out hours before the massacre had occurred.