attempt to
fly.

"How far is it to the next village, lad?" Surajah asked; "and which is
the way? We are shikarees. Are there any tigers about?"

"Plenty of them," the boy said. "I drive the goats to a strong, high
stockade every evening; and would not come out, before the sun rose,
for all the money they say the sultan has.

"Make for that tree, and close to it you will see a spring. Follow
that down. It will take you to the village."

After walking for six hours, they came to the village. It was a place
of some little size, but there were few people about. Women came to
the doors to look at Surajah and Dick as they came along.

"Where are you from?" an old man asked, as he came out from his
cottage.

"From down the mountain side. Tigers are getting scarce there, and we
thought we would come over and see what we could do, here."

"Here there are many tigers," the old man said. "For the last twenty
years, the wars have taken most of our young men away. Some are forced
to go against their will; for when the order comes, to the head man of
the village, that the sultan requires so many soldiers, he is forced
to pick out those best fitted for service. Others go of their own free
will, thinking soldiering easier work than tilling the fields, besides
the chance of getting rich booty. So there are but few shikarees, and
the tigers multiply and are a curse to us.

"We are but poor people, but if you choose to stay here for a time, we
will pay something for every tiger you kill; and we will send round to
the other villages, within ten miles, and doubtless every one of them
will contribute, so that you might get enough to pay you for your
exertions."

"We will think of it," Surajah replied. "We did not intend to stop in
one village, but proposed to travel about in the jungle-covered
district; and wherever we hear complaints of a tiger committing
depredations, we will stop and do our best to kill the evil beast. We
mean, first, to find out where they are most troublesome, and then we
shall work back again. We hear that the sultan gives good prices, for
those taken alive."

"I have heard so," the old man said, "but none have been caught alive
here, or by anyone in the villages round. The sultan generally gets
them from the royal forests, where none are allowed to shoot, save
with his permission. Sometimes, when there is a lack of them there,
his hunters come into these districts, and catch them in pitfalls, and
have n