tings, and I will tell them of the
shot--in the circle under the tree."

"And where, little hawk, wilt thou procure thine elephants, and such
rupees as are needed?"

"Warwick Sahib shoots from the ground--and so will I. And sometimes he
goes forth with only one attendant--and I will not need even one. And
who can say--perhaps he will find me even a bolder man than Gunga
Singhai; and he will take me in his place on the hunts in the
jungles."

For Gunga Singhai was Warwick Sahib's own personal attendant and
gun-carrier--the native that the Protector of the Poor could trust in
the tightest places. So it was only to be expected that Little
Shikara's mother should laugh at him. The idea of her son being an
attendant of Warwick Sahib, not to mention a hunter of tigers, was
only a tale to tell her husband when the boy's bright eyes were closed
in sleep.

"Nay, little man," she told him. "Would I want thee torn to pieces in
Nahara's claws? Would I want thee smelling of the jungle again, as
thou didst after chasing the water-buck through the bamboos? Nay--thou
wilt be a herdsman, like thy father--and perhaps gather many rupees."

But Little Shikara did not want to think of rupees. Even now, as sleep
came to him, his childish spirit had left the circle of thatch roofs,
and had gone on tremulous expeditions into the jungle. Far away, the
trumpet-call of a wild tusker trembled through the moist, hot night;
and great bell-shaped flowers made the air pungent and heavy with
perfume. A tigress skulked somewhere in a thicket licking an injured
leg with her rough tongue, pausing to listen to every sound the night
gave forth. Little Shikara whispered in his sleep.

A half mile distant, in his richly furnished bungalow, Warwick Sahib
dozed over his after-dinner cigar. He was in evening clothes, and
crystal and silver glittered on his board. But his gray eyes were half
closed; and the gleam from his plate could not pass the long, dark
lashes. For his spirit was far distant, too--on the jungle trails with
that of Little Shikara.

II

One sunlit morning, perhaps a month after the skin of Nahar was
brought in from the jungle, Warwick Sahib's mail was late. It was an
unheard-of thing. Always before, just as the clock struck eight, he
would hear the cheerful tinkle of the postman's bells. At first he
considered complaining; but as morning drew to early afternoon he
began to believe that investigation would be the wiser course.

Th