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Page 138

| continued in a monotone. "And also fire." |

| "Fire?" Sasha gasped, fear spiraling through her at the mere thought of a fire. |

| "The Aborigines run around through the outback half starved all of the time," he grumbled. "They are known to fire a province for a single meal." |

| "What do you mean?" Sasha asked, her eyes wide. |

| "The Aborigines do not hesitate to burn off a few square miles of territory just to catch a dozen or so goannas and marsupial rats at the cost of destroying all slow-moving animals and trees of the forest within that area," he explained. "The one advantage to these fires is that they promote new grass in the open country." |

| He glanced down at his trusting dingo pup sleeping at his feet, then looked back into the moonlit distance. "The worst enemy of the sheep is Australia's native dog, the dingo. Once one gets into a flock, it might kill thirty or forty sheep before the shepherd can come to their rescue." |

| Sasha looked down at Lightning, everything within her loving the pup. "Lightning is a dingo," she said, her voice drawn. "Do you think she will ever become an enemy of our sheep?" |

| Ashton looked down at the pup. "I don't think we have anything to fear from Lightning," he said. "Though a dingo, she wasn't reared and taught to kill sheep. She doesn't need the flesh of the sheep or any other wild thing to survive." He laughed. "I think that she sometimes forgets that she's a dog." |

| "Today she remembered," Sasha said, smiling at the memory of Lightning meeting the kelpie nose to nose. "She and the kelpie seemed to become instant friends." |

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