's voice trailed away he rolled quietly to
his side, keeping himself courteously awake.

There was silence. Skag's eyes were far off among the blazing Indian
stars.

"We'll manage 'em together," he added sleepily. The next day they
wandered--rough desolate country in burning sunlight. It gave the
impression that the whole surface crust of earth had been burned to a
white heat ages ago. Low hills with clifflike faces; shallow nullahs
used only a month or two a year to carry the monsoon deluges to the
Nerbudda; the stones of the river bottoms bone-white--everywhere sparse
and scrubby foliage with dust-covered leaves. There was no turf in
this stony world except the sand of the hollows and the wind eddied
most of these spaces like water, quickly covering all tracks. It was
toward the end of the afternoon that Nels first intimated a scent.

Tiger of course--that was Nels' orders--but it wasn't fresh. Skag gave
the Dane word to do the best he could and followed leisurely. The big
fellow worked with painful care for more than an hour before he became
sure of himself; then his speed quickened, following a dry nullah at
last, for several miles. The dark was creeping in before they came to
a deep fissure among the rocks where the empty waterway sunk into a
pool which was not yet dry. Skag and the Dane drank deep; then the man
filled his canteen, with the remark:

"We'll camp a little back, not to obstruct the water hole. All trails
end here. To-morrow morning we'll get fresh tiger scent if we're in
luck. But I wonder what we're trailing?"

It was a fact of long establishment among the villages that only the
one mated pair worked this section of the country. According to one of
the stories of the English hunter, the male tiger had been killed and
the female wounded--in which case what was this? Certainly there was
nothing to indicate that the scent was left by a wounded tiger. Others
might have doubted Nels' discrimination, but Skag scouted that in his
own mind. The Dane knew Tiger. It was as distinct and individual to
him from the other big cats as the voices of friends one from another.

Nels was said to have met Tiger in battle before he came to Skag, but
it was no purpose of his present master to give him a chance now. It
was established that several of the great Indian hunting dogs had
survived such meetings. Malcolm M'Cord declared that a veteran in the
cheetah game would show himself master in any