said Chinn.

"We have seen it. It is like a village road under the tomb."

"Can ye find and follow it for me?"

"By daylight--if one comes with us, and, above all, stands near by."

"I will stand close, and we will see to it that Jan Chinn does not ride
any more."

The Bhils shouted the last words again and again.

From Chinn's point of view the stalk was nothing more than an ordinary
one--down-hill, through split and crannied rocks, unsafe, perhaps, if a
man did not keep his wits by him, but no worse than twenty others he had
undertaken. Yet his men--they refused absolutely to beat, and would only
trail--dripped sweat at every move. They showed the marks of enormous
pugs that ran, always down-hill, to a few hundred feet below Jan Chinn's
tomb, and disappeared in a narrow-mouthed cave. It was an insolently
open road, a domestic highway, beaten without thought of concealment.

"The beggar might be paying rent and taxes," Chinn muttered ere he asked
whether his friend's taste ran to cattle or man.

"Cattle," was the answer. "Two heifers a week. We drive them for him
at the foot of the hill. It is his custom. If we did not, he might seek
us."

"Blackmail and piracy," said Chinn. "I can't say I fancy going into the
cave after him. What's to be done?"

The Bhils fell back as Chinn lodged himself behind a rock with his
rifle ready. Tigers, he knew, were shy beasts, but one who had been long
cattle-fed in this sumptuous style might prove overbold.

"He speaks!" some one whispered from the rear. "He knows, too."

"Well, of all the infernal cheek!" said Chinn. There was an angry growl
from the cave--a direct challenge.

"Come out, then," Chinn shouted. "Come out of that. Let's have a look at
you." The brute knew well enough that there was some connection between
brown nude Bhils and his weekly allowance; but the white helmet in the
sunlight annoyed him, and he did not approve of the voice that broke his
rest. Lazily as a gorged snake, he dragged himself out of the cave, and
stood yawning and blinking at the entrance. The sunlight fell upon his
flat right side, and Chinn wondered. Never had he seen a tiger marked
after this fashion. Except for his head, which was staringly barred, he
was dappled--not striped, but dappled like a child's rocking-horse in
rich shades of smoky black on red gold. That portion of his belly and
throat which should have been white was orange, and his tail and paws
were black.

He looked