CHASED BY DINGOES

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 60, 8 September 1926, Page 9

CHASED BY DINGOES

ON ROUGH BUSH TRACK

WILD MOONLIGHT BIDE.

(From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, 3rd September. One of the strangest stories that have been told of the bush in these modern days comes from the town of Lismore, one of the most prosperous centres on the fertile North Coast of New South Wales. It concerns a chase after a well-known farmer, who was driving a motor-car, by a fierce pack of wild dingoes. The dingo is one of the few marauders Australia possesses. Pierce native dogs, they confine their ravaging mostly to defenceless, weaker, animals, taking immense tolls of sheep and young cattle, especially in the far west of this State and in parts of Queensland and South Australia, where tho very size of the stations prevent proper safeguards, such as wire-netting the runs, to be taken against them. In the more settled parts of tho country, the advance of the white man has driven them to the barren mountain tops and tangled valleys, if it has not eradicated them, although reports from the north coast lately have indicated that they are once more on the increase.

The farmer who met with the strange adventure with these dingoes is a wellknown member of the Primary Producers' Union, an organisation of farmers, and he had been attending a meeting of a branch of the organisation, about twenty miles from his own home. Tho business of the meeting lasting longer than he thought it would, he found that he would have to make the journey back along a rough bush track by moonlight or stay the night at a friend's place. Possessing a motorcar, he thought that the journey would be little trouble, and he chose to go to his own home. Tho road led through dense bush. . He topped a riso in the rough toad, and was speeding through a clear patch when ho observed strange forms slinking in the shadows, and two or three ran across the road in tho glare of his headlights. Suddenly ho found himself in the midst of a pack of dingoes, led as far as the motorist could determine, by a huge half-bred dog. Fiercely leaping at the car, tho pack gave chase and kept up with their quarry, the more venturesome of the dogs now and again leaping at the car. The driver at first teased the animals by alternately increasing and slackening speed, but fearing that his car might stall, and becoming alarmed at the dingoes' ferocity and perseverance, he increased the speed of the car. The faster he went, the faster went the dingoes. They, were never further than a few yards behind him. Then, despite the roughness of the track, the farmer decided to send his car along at the best speed it could attain, and it was only then, after the dingoes had chased the car several more miles, that they gave up the hunt, the last to relinquish pursuit being the-huge leader.

The pack is stated to be the terror of the whole neighbourhood, and more than a .dbzen forays have been made against it by armed men and dogs without success. It has done much damage to stock, taking young calves, sheep, ducks, and fowls. Its. leader, unequalled in cunning, has warred against the whole countryside for three seasons. Now a special expedition is being formed against the pack, for the settlers realise that its exhibition of fierceness against the lone motorist has proved its ability to attack human beings.