Hideaway Strath amber alert

The return trip was faster - funny how that happens - but he didn't get all the way back to the start in those twenty minutes or so of hiking. A shuffling sound along the path caught in Dingo's ears and made him slow, then stop, but he didn't look around. If there was prey here he didn't want to move and spook it away; honestly it would've been comical to see him standing as still as a tree with only his eyes flicking to-and-fro. The tempo wasn't too irregular. The steps sounded soft, careful, and low to the ground which suggested (to an idiot like Dingo) that it might be a possum out of its tree, a very large rat, or maybe something else small and delectable. He began to stalk along the path after that in search of the critter...

And as Dingo came along a sharp-edged grotto of stone wrought with old and bent trees, he spotted it -- something on the smaller side, and gloriously golden. Nice big ears -- wait. The man took a deep breath and with a brief shake of his shoulders, shrugged off the mantle of hunter he had assumed for the past few hours, giving it up as he intercepted the blind child. So much for impressing the boss with a bit of fresh meat (well, unless he improvised with his own, wink wink).

Hey kid, he called out to her gruffly and from a distance, not wanting to spook her. Dingo wasn't kid friendly. He really didn't do kids; his interests lay in the more developed wolves of the wilds (which didn't mean much in retrospect). He observed her for a few minutes as she acclimatised to his presence, looking her over with a bored expression she could not see — in part, studying her and wondering what she'll look like as an adult. Her golden coat was intriguing. Her petite figure would probably fill out a little bit, but still remain tiny, pliant, and attractive. Yeah, she'd be hot when she was older. A smirk creeps slowly across his face as he thinks about that. 

You shouldn't be out here, you know that. As he intercepts her he reaches out, lightly nudges her to realign Fennec's trajectory so that she's facing the den or whatever, and murmurs over her head, C'mon, I'll walk you back--