Chinn could not say; but the whole hill's flank
rustled with little men, shouting, singing, and stamping. And yet, till
he had made the first cut in the splendid skin, not a man would take a
knife; and, when the shadows fell, they ran from the red-stained tomb,
and no persuasion would bring them back till dawn. So Chinn spent
a second night in the open, guarding the carcass from jackals, and
thinking about his ancestor.

He returned to the lowlands to the triumphal chant of an escorting army
three hundred strong, the Mahratta vaccinator close at his elbow, and
the rudely dried skin a trophy before him. When that army suddenly and
noiselessly disappeared, as quail in high corn, he argued he was near
civilisation, and a turn in the road brought him upon the camp of a wing
of his own corps. He left the skin on a cart-tail for the world to see,
and sought the Colonel.

"They're perfectly right," he explained earnestly. "There isn't an ounce
of vice in 'em. They were only frightened. I've vaccinated the whole
boiling, and they like it awfully. What are--what are we doing here,
sir?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out," said the Colonel. "I don't know
yet whether we're a piece of a brigade or a police force. However, I
think we'll call ourselves a police force. How did you manage to get a
Bhil vaccinated?"

"Well, sir," said Chinn, "I've been thinking it over, and, as far as I
can make out, I've got a sort of hereditary influence over 'em."

"So I know, or I wouldn't have sent you; but what, exactly?"

"It's rather rummy. It seems, from what I can make out, that I'm my
own grandfather reincarnated, and I've been disturbing the peace of the
country by riding a pad-tiger of nights. If I hadn't done that, I don't
think they'd have objected to the vaccination; but the two together were
more than they could stand. And so, sir, I've vaccinated 'em, and shot
my tiger-horse as a sort o' proof of good faith. You never saw such a
skin in your life."

The Colonel tugged his moustache thought-fully. "Now, how the deuce,"
said he, "am I to include that in my report?"

Indeed, the official version of the Bhils' anti-vaccination stampede
said nothing about Lieutenant John Chinn, his godship. But Bukta knew,
and the corps knew, and every Bhil in the Satpura hills knew.

And now Bukta is zealous that John Chinn shall swiftly be wedded and
impart his powers to a son; for if the Chinn succession fails, and
the little Bhils are left