ed. "Perhaps
it is on account of the name. A Bhil does not love strange things. Give
them orders, Sahib--two, three, four words at a time such as they can
carry away in their heads. That is enough."

Chinn gave orders then, valiantly, not realising that a word spoken in
haste before mess became the dread unappealable law of villages beyond
the smoky hills was, in truth, no less than the Law of Jan Chinn the
First, who, so the whispered legend ran, had come back to earth, to
oversee the third generation, in the body and bones of his grandson.

There could be no sort of doubt in this matter. All the Bhils knew that
Jan Chinn reincarnated had honoured Bukta's village with his presence
after slaying his first--in this life--tiger; that he had eaten and
drunk with the people, as he was used; and--Bukta must have drugged
Chinn's liquor very deeply--upon his back and right shoulder all men had
seen the same angry red Flying Cloud that the high Gods had set on
the flesh of Jan Chinn the First when first he came to the Bhil. As
concerned the foolish white world which has no eyes, he was a slim and
young officer in the Wuddars; but his own people knew he was Jan Chinn,
who had made the Bhil a man; and, believing, they hastened to carry his
words, careful never to alter them on the way.

Because the savage and the child who plays lonely games have one
horror of being laughed at or questioned, the little folk kept their
convictions to themselves; and the Colonel, who thought he knew his
regiment, never guessed that each one of the six hundred quick-footed,
beady-eyed rank-and-file, to attention beside their rifles, believed
serenely and unshakenly that the subaltern on the left flank of the line
was a demi-god twice born--tutelary deity of their land and people. The
Earth-gods themselves had stamped the incarnation, and who would dare to
doubt the handiwork of the Earth-gods?

Chinn, being practical above all things, saw that his family name served
him well in the lines and in camp. His men gave no trouble--one does not
commit regimental offences with a god in the chair of justice--and he
was sure of the best beaters in the district when he needed them. They
believed that the protection of Jan Chinn the First cloaked them, and
were bold in that belief beyond the utmost daring of excited Bhils.

His quarters began to look like an amateur natural-history museum,
in spite of duplicate heads and horns and skulls that he sent home t