eyond words, and many calves. They ranged all
the way in size from the great leader, who stood ten feet and weighed
nearly nine thousand pounds, to little two-hundred-and-fifty-pound
babies that had been born that season. And before long the entire herd
began its cautious advance into the deeper hills.

The first night in the jungle--and Muztagh found it wonderful past all
dreams. The mist on his skin was the same cool joy he had expected.
There were sounds, too, that set his great muscles aquiver. He heard the
sound that the bamboos make--the little click-click of the stems in the
wind--the soft rustle and stir of many leafy tendrils entwining and
touching together, and the whisper of the wind over the jungle grass.
And he knew because it was his heritage, what every single one of these
sounds meant.

The herd threaded through the dark jungle, and now they descended into a
cool river. A herd of deer--either the dark sambur or black buck--sprang
from the misty shore-line and leaped away into the bamboos. Farther
down, he could hear the grunt of buffalo.

It was simply a caress--the touch of the soft, cool water on his flanks.
Then they reared out, like great sea-gods rising from the deep, and
grunted and squealed their way up the banks into the jungle again.

But the smells were the book that he read best; he understood them even
better than the sounds of green things growing. Flowers that he could
not see hung like bells from the arching branches. Every fern and every
seeding grass had its own scent that told sweet tales. The very mud that
his four feet sank into emitted scent that told the history of
jungle-life from the world's beginnings. When dawn burst over the
eastern hills, he was weary in every muscle of his young body, but much
too happy to admit it.

This day was just the first of three thousand joyous days. The jungle,
old as the world itself, is ever new. Not even the wisest elephant, who,
after all, is king of the jungle, knows what will turn up at the next
bend in the elephant trail. It may be a native woodcutter, whose long
hair is stirred with fright. It may easily be one of the great breed of
bears, large as the American grizzly, that some naturalists believe are
to be found in the Siamese and Burman jungles. It may be a herd of wild
buffalo, always looking for a fight, or simply some absurd
armadillo-like thing, to make him shake his vast sides with mirth.

The herd was never still. They ranged