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The Dogger

Edward S. Sorenson

In lonely parts the dogger camps,
    Where dingoes prowl and prey;
Along the creeks he rides and tramps,
With baits and traps to trick the scamps
    When red hills turn to grey.

No common brute that haunts the creeks,
    Or lurks in dune and log,
Could tax his wits; but one he seeks
He’s trailed and studied hard for weeks—
    A hundred-guinea dog.

A demon known on many runs,
    And never heard to howl,
That’s dodged the baits and traps and guns
Of scheming sleuths for years, and shuns
    The risks where others prowl.

They’ve sought in vain his appetite
    With dainty baits to please;
His cunning ways they could recite;
They’ve learned to know his savage bite,
    And eke his hours of ease.

But only one of all his foes,
    Persists from dawn till dark;
Relentlessly the dogger goes,
Keen eyed for where the outlaw’s toes
    Have left a telltale mark.

He searches deep in gorge and glen,
    Round pools the hills embrace,
In gullies dark, through scrub and fen,
Until he finds, remote from men,
    The outlaw’s drinking-place.

He treads not there; nor leaf nor scrap
    He touches with his hand,
But wades across with stake and strap,
And under water sets his trap,
    Half-buried in the sand.

The outlaw, bloody-jowled and hot,
    Slinks from his latest kill,
With lolling tongue and lazy trot,
Contented in that chosen spot
    To lave and lap his fill.

With rug and quart on saddle-D’s,
    Soon from the wooded rise
The dogger looks through dew-wet trees,
And in the grim steel jaws he sees
    His hundred-guinea prize.

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