ng something. "He's always doing it," said the youngster.
"Whatever happens to die, from a tom-cat to a tom-tit, he gets hold of.
I do believe if he was to die, he would try to skin and stuff himself!"

At that moment Archie entered the room.

"I've got it nearly done now," he said, with a pleased expression, while
he rubbed his not-over-clean hands. "I'll set him up to-night and
photograph him to-morrow, with Flo under his wings to show his
_enormous_ size."

"Oh! that minds me o' the elephants," cried Junkie, jumping up and
running to Jackman, who was assisting. Barret to arrange plants for
Milly. "We are _all_ here now--an' you _promised_, you know."

A heavy patter of rain on the window seemed to emphasise Junkie's
request by suggesting that nothing better could be done.

"Well, Junkie, I have no objection," said the Woods-and-Forester, "if
the rest of the company do not object."

As the rest of the company did not object, but rather expressed anxiety
to hear about the hunt, Jackman drew his chair near to the fire, the
boys crowded round him, and he began with,--"Let me see. Where was I?"

"In India, of course," said Junkie. "Yes; but at what part of the
hunt?"

"Oh! you hadn't begun the hunt at all. You had only made Chand
somethin' or other, Isri Per-what-d'ee-call-it, an' Raj Mung-thingumy
give poor Mowla Buksh such an awful mauling."

"Just so. Well, you must know that next day we received news of large
herds of elephants away to the eastward of the Ganges, so we started off
with all our forces--hunters, matchlock-men, onlookers, etcetera, and
about eighty tame elephants. Chief among these last were the fighting
elephants, to which Junkie gave such appropriate names just now, and
king of them all was the mighty Chand Moorut, who had never been known
to refuse a fight or lose a victory since he was grown up.

"It was really grand to see this renowned mountain of living flesh
towering high above his fellows. Like all heroes, he was calm and
dignified when not in action--a lamb in the drawing-room, a lion in the
field. Even the natives, accustomed as they were to these giants, came
to look at him admiringly that morning as he walked sedately out of
camp. He was so big that he seemed to grow bigger while you looked at
him, and he was absolutely perfect in form and strength--the very
Hercules of brutes.

"The trackers had marked down a herd of wild elephants, not three miles
distant, in a nar