phant-shelter, like this, only quite new and good, at the end of
that there left path; and right away beyond that, in a sort of clearing
where the jungle has been cut down--if I didn't tell you before--there's
some big trees and a sort of scaffold of bamboos that looks like a
shelter such as any one would climb up to shoot tigers, and under it
some bones, just as if a buffalo had been tied up for a bait."

"Yes, I see," said Archie. "Well, go on."

"What about?"

"About what you found next."

"I didn't find nothing next, only paths--helephant-paths that go right
away somewhere."

"Yes. Go on."

"Well, I did go on as far as I dared, sir; but it was all dark, and I
couldn't do anything so long as the Malay chaps were talking, and when
they were quiet I was afraid to stir for fear of waking them up."

"But didn't you find out where the paths led to?"

"No, sir. I did try."

"Well, but didn't you strike out into the jungle?"

Peter chuckled.

"Strike out, sir! Why, you're shut in everywhere, and it's like trying
to break through a sort of natural cane basket."

"Then you really have done nothing?"

"No, sir; only found that this seems to be the place in the forest where
somebody comes to shoot tigers. And talk about them chickens--that's
why I did not go so far as I might. Every now and then I could hear one
of them calling to its mate; and the first time it scared me so that I
swarmed up a tree into the shelter or scaffold sort of place, where you
could sit down."

"Well, what then?" said Archie impatiently.

"Well, sir, I sat down."

"Naturally," said Archie.

"And then, when I thought it safe, and I was going to climb down in the
dark to have another look, _mi-a-o-u_! There was that there great pussy
again--and he was a whopper!"

"But you couldn't see him?"

"No, sir; it was too dark. I knew he was a whopper, though, by the size
of his squeak. But I am pretty sure that he could see me, for he seemed
to come and sit upright in the middle of the clearing, and began to
purr. Blessed if he didn't sound just like a threshing-machine out in
the fields at home after harvest-time."

Archie was silent for a few moments, and Peter Pegg went on quietly and
thoughtfully:

"Yes, sir; it sounded just like that."

"Then you stopped up in that shelter for long enough?"

"I just did, sir--for hours."

"Did you go to sleep?"

"Did I go to sleep, sir? No! Never felt so full of wide-awake in my