from one mysterious hill to
another, to the ranges of the Himalayas and back again. There were no
rivers that they did not swim, no jungles that they did not penetrate,
no elephant trails that they did not follow, in the whole northeastern
corner of British India. And all the time Muztagh's strength grew upon
him until it became too vast a thing to measure or control.

Whether or not he kept with the herd was by now a matter of supreme
indifference to him. He no longer needed its protection. Except for the
men who came with the ropes and guns and shoutings, there was nothing in
the jungle for him to fear. He was twenty years old, and he stood nearly
eleven feet to the top of his shoulders. He would have broken any scales
in the Indian Empire that tried to weigh him.

He had had his share of adventures, yet he knew that life in reality had
just begun. The time would come when he would want to fight the great
arrogant bull for the leadership of the herd. He was tired of fighting
the young bulls of his own age. He always won, and to an elephant
constant winning is almost as dull as constant losing. He was a great
deal like a youth of twenty in any breed of any land--light-hearted,
self-confident, enjoying every minute of wakefulness between one
midnight and another. He loved the jungle smells and the jungle sounds,
and he could even tolerate the horrible laughter of the hyenas that
sometimes tore to shreds the silence of the grassy plains below.

But India is too thickly populated by human beings for a wild elephant
to escape observation entirely. Many natives had caught sight of him,
and at last the tales reached a little circle of trackers and hunters in
camp on a distant range of hills. They did not work for Dugan Sahib, for
Dugan Sahib was dead long since. They were a determined little group,
and one night they sat and talked softly over their fire. If Muztagh's
ears had been sharp enough to hear their words across the space of
hills, he wouldn't have gone to his mud-baths with such complacency the
next day. But the space between them was fifty miles of sweating jungle,
and of course he did not hear.

"You will go, Khusru," said the leader, "for there are none here half so
skilful with horsehair rope as you. If you do not come back within
twelve months we shall know you have failed."

Of course all of them knew what he meant. If a man failed in the effort
to capture a wild elephant by the hair-rope method, he very