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world to him he was the head of all the operations the man who caught all the for the government of india and who knew more about of than any living man what what will happen said little happen the worst that can happen is a madman else why should he go hunting these wild devils he may even require thee to be an elephant to sleep anywhere in these and at last to be trampled to death in the it is well that this nonsense ends safely next week the catching is over and we of the plains are sent back to our stations then we will march on smooth roads and forget all this hunting but son i am angry that thou in the business that belongs to these dirty folk will obey none but me so i must go with him into the but he is only a fighting elephant and he does not help to rope them so i sit at my ease as a not a mere hunter a i say and a man who gets a at the end of his service is the family of of the to be trodden in the dirt of a bad one wicked one worthless son go and wash m i the book and attend to his ears and see that there are no thorns in his feet or else will surely catch thee and make thee a wild hunter a of elephant s foot tracks a bear shame go little went off without saying a word but he told all his while he was examining his feet no matter said little turning up the fringe of s huge right ear they have said my name to and perhaps and perhaps and perhaps who knows hai that is a big thorn that i have pulled out the next few days were spent in getting the together in walking the newly caught wild up and down between a couple of tame ones to prevent them giving too much trouble on the downward march to the plains and in taking stock of the blankets and ropes and things that had been worn out or lost in the forest came in on his clever she elephant he had been paying off other among the hills for the season was coming to an end and there was a native clerk sitting at a table under a tree to pay the drivers their wages as each man was paid he went back to his elephant and joined the line that stood ready to start the and hunters and the men of the regular who stayed in the year in and year out sat on the backs of the that belonged to s permanent force or leaned against the trees with their guns across their arms and made fun of the drivers who were going away and laughed when the newly caught broke the line and ran about big i i of the went up to the clerk with little behind him and the head said in an to a friend of his there goes one piece of good elephant stuff at least tis a pity to send that young cock to in the plains now had ears all over him as a man must have who to the most silent of all living things the wild elephant he turned where he was lying all along on s back and said what is that i did not know of a man among the plains drivers who had wit enough to rope even a dead elephant this is not a man but a boy he went into the at the last drive and threw there the rope when we were trying to get that young calf with the on his shoulder away from his mother pointed at little and looked and little bowed to the earth he throw a rope he is smaller than a little one what is thy name said little was too frightened to speak but was behind him and made a sign with his hand and the elephant caught him up in his trunk and held him level with s forehead in front of the great then little covered his face with his hands for he was only a child and except where were concerned he was just as as a child could be said smiling underneath his moustache and why thou teach thy elephant that trick was it to help thee steal green com from the roofs of the houses when the ears are put out to v of t e i ot green corn protector of the poor said little and all the men sitting about broke into a roar of laughter most of them had taught their that trick when they were boys little was hanging eight feet up in the air and he wished very much that he were eight feet under ground he is my son said big he is a very bad boy and he will end in a jail of that i have my doubts said a boy who can face a full at his age does not end in see little one here are four to spend in because thou hast a little head under that great of hair in time thou become a hunter too big more than ever remember though that are not good for children to play in went on must i never go there asked little with a big gasp yes smiled again when thou hast seen the dance that is the proper time to me when thou hast seen the dance and then i will let thee go into all the there was another roar of laughter for that is an old joke among elephant and it means just never there are great cleared flat places hidden away in the forests that arc called but even these	39
are only found by accident and no man has ever seen the dance when a driver of his skill and bravery the i the book other drivers say and when thou see the dance put little down and he bowed to the earth again and went away with his father and gave the silver four piece to his mother who was nursing his baby brother and they all were put up on s back and the line of rolled down the hill path to the plains it was a very lively march on account of the new who gave trouble at every ford and needed or beating every other minute big for he was very angry but little was too happy to speak had noticed him and given him money so he felt as a private soldier would feel if he had been called out of the ranks and praised by his commander in chief what did mean by the he said at last softly to his mother big heard him and that thou never be one of these hill of t was what he meant oh you in front what is the way an driver two or three ahead turned round angrily crying bring up and knock this of mine into good behaviour why should have chosen me to go down with you of the rice fields lay your beast alongside and let him with his by all the gods of the hills these new are possessed or else they can smell their companions in the hit the new elephant in the ribs and of the knocked the wind out of him as big said we have swept the hills of wild at the last catch it is only your carelessness in driving must i keep order along the whole line hear him said the other driver we have swept the hills ho ho you are very wise you plains people any one but a mud head who never saw the would know that know that the drives are ended for the season therefore all the wild to night will but why should i waste wisdom on a river what will they do little called out m little one art thou there well i will tell thee for thou hast a cool head they will dance and it thy father who has swept a the hills of all the to double chain his to night what talk is this said big for forty years father and son we have tended and we have never heard such about dances yes but a plains man who lives in a hut knows only the four walls of his hut well leave thy to night and see what comes as for their dancing i have seen the place where how many has the river here is another ford and we must swim the stop still you behind there and in this way talking and and through the rivers they made their first march to a sort of receiving camp for the new but they lost their long before they got there i the book then the were chained by their hind legs to their big of and extra ropes were fitted to the new and the was piled before them and the hill drivers went back to through the afternoon light telling the plains drivers to be extra careful that night and laughing when the plains drivers asked the reason little attended to s supper and as evening fell wandered through the camp happy in search of a tom tom when an indian child s heart is full he does not run about and make a noise in an irregular fashion he sits down to a sort of all by himself and little had been spoken to by if he had not found what he wanted i believe he would have been ill but the in the camp lent him a little tom tom a drum beaten with the flat of the hand and he sat down cross legged before as the stars began to come out the tom tom in his lap and he and he and he and the more he thought of the great honour that had been done to him the more he all alone among the elephant there was no tune and no words but the made him happy the new strained at their ropes and and from time to time and he could hear his mother in the camp hut putting his small brother to sleep with an old old song about the great god who once told all the animals what they should eat it is a very soothing and the first verse says who poured the harvest and made the winds to blow sitting at the of a day of long ago of the gave to each his portion food and toil and fate from the king upon the to the beggar at the gate all things made he the he made all thorn for the for the and mother s heart for sleepy head o little son of mine i little came in with a joyous a at the end of each verse till he felt sleepy and stretched himself on the at s side at last the began to lie down one after another as is their custom till only at the right of the line was left standing up and he rocked slowly from side to side his ears put forward to listen to the night wind as it blew very slowly across the hills the air was full of all the night noises that taken together make one big silence the click of one stem against the other the rustle of something alive in the the scratch and of a half bird birds are awake in the night much more often than we imagine and the fall of water ever so far away little slept	39
for some time and when he it was brilliant moonlight and was still standing up with his ears cocked little turned rustling in the and watched the curve of his big back against half the stars in heaven and while he watched he heard so far away that it sounded no more than a of noise pricked through the stillness the of a wild elephant all the in the lines jumped up as if they had been shot and their at last the sleeping and they came out and drove in the with big and this rope and knotted that till all was quiet one new elephant had nearly the book up his and big took oflf s leg chain and that elephant fore foot to hind foot but slipped a of round s leg and told him to remember that he was tied fast he knew that he and his father and his grandfather had done the very same thing hundreds of times before did not answer to the order by as he usually did he stood still looking out across the moonlight his head a little raised and his ears spread like up to the great folds of the hills tend to him if he grows restless in the night said big to little and he went into the hut and slept little was just going to sleep too when he heard the string snap with a little ting and rolled out of his as slowly and as silently as a cloud rolls out of the mouth of a valley little after him down the road in the moonlight calling under his breath take me with you o the elephant turned without a sound took three strides back to the boy in the moonlight put down liis trunk swung him up to his neck and almost before little had settled his knees slipped into the forest there was one blast of furious from the lines and then the silence shut down on everything and began to move sometimes a of high grass washed along his sides as a wave along the sides of a ship and sometimes a cluster of wild vines would scrape along his of the back or a would where his shoulder touched it but between those times he moved absolutely without any sound drifting through the thick forest as though it had been smoke he was going up hill but though little watched the stars in the of the trees he could not tell in what direction then reached the crest of the ascent and stopped for a minute and little could see the tops of the trees lying all and under the moonlight for miles and miles and the blue white mist over the river in the hollow leaned forward and looked and he felt that the forest was awake below him awake and alive and crowded a big brown bat brushed past his ear a s rattled in the thicket and in the darkness between the tree stems he heard a bear digging hard in the moist warm earth and as it then the branches closed over his head again and began to go down into the valley not quietly this time but as a gun goes down a steep in one rush the huge limbs moved as steadily as eight feet to each stride and the wrinkled skin of the elbow points the on either side of him with a noise like torn canvas and the that he heaved away right and left with his shoulders sprang back again and him on the flank and great of all together hung from his as he threw his head from side to side and out his pathway then little laid himself down close to the great neck lest a swinging bough should sweep him to the ground of the and he wished that he were back in the lines again the grass began to get and s feet sucked and as he put them down and the night mist at the bottom of the valley chilled little there was a splash and a and the rush of running water and strode through the bed of a river feeling bis way at each step above the noise of the water as it round the elephant s legs little could hear more and some both up stream and down great and angry and all the mist about him seemed to be full of rolling shadows at he said half aloud his teeth chattering the elephant folk are out tonight it is the dance then out of the water blew his trunk r and began another climb but this time he was not alone and he had not to make his path that was made already six feet wide in front of him where the bent grass was trying to recover itself and stand up many must have gone that way only a few minutes before little looked back and behind him a great wild with his little pig s eyes glowing like hot coals was just lifting himself out of the misty river then the trees closed up again and they went on and up with and and the sound of breaking branches on every side of them at last stood still between two tree trunks at the very top of the hill they were part of a circle of trees that grew round an irregular space of some three or four acres and in all that space as little could see the ground had been the book trampled down as hard as a brick floor some trees grew in the centre of the clearing but their bark was rubbed away and the white wood beneath showed all shiny and polished in the patches of moonlight there were hanging from the upper branches and the bells of the flowers of the great white things like hung down fast asleep but within	39
the limits of the clearing there was not a single blade of green nothing but the trampled earth the moonlight showed it all iron except where some stood upon it their shadows were black little looked holding his breath with his eyes starting out of his head and as he looked more and more and more swung out into the open from between the tree trunks little could only count up to ten and he counted again and again on his fingers till he lost count of the and his head began to swim outside the clearing he could hear them crashing in the as they worked their way up the but as soon as they were within the circle of the tree trunks they moved like ghosts there were white wild with leaves and nuts and twigs lying in the wrinkles of their necks and the folds of their ears fat she with restless little black only three or four feet high under their young with their just beginning to show and very proud of them old maid with their hollow anxious faces and trunks like rough bark savage old bull from shoulder to flank of the with great and cuts of fights and the dirt of their solitary mud dropping from their shoulders and there was one with a broken and the marks of the full stroke the terrible drawing scrape of a tiger s claws on his side they were standing head to head or walking to and fro across the ground in couples or rocking and swaying all by themselves scores and scores of knew that so long as he lay still on s neck nothing would happen to him for even in the rush and scramble of a drive a wild elephant does not reach up with his trunk and drag a man off the neck of a tame elephant and these were not thinking of men that night once they started and put their ears forward when they heard the of a leg iron in the forest but it was s pet elephant her chain snapped short off up the she must have broken her and come straight from s camp and little saw another elephant one that he did not know with deep rope on his back and breast he too must have run away from some camp in the hills about at last there was no sound of any more moving in the forest and rolled out from his station between the trees and went into the middle of the crowd and and all the began to talk in their own tongue and to move about still lying down little looked down upon scores and scores of broad backs and ears and tossing trunks and little rolling eyes he heard the click of as they the book crossed other by accident and the dry rustle of trunks together and the of enormous sides and shoulders in the crowd and the incessant and of the great tails then a cloud came over the moon and he sat in black darkness but the quiet steady and pushing and went on just the same he knew that there were all round and that there was no chance of him out of the assembly so he set his teeth and shivered in a at least there was torch light and shouting but here he was all alone in the dark and once a trunk came up and touched him on the knee then an elephant and they all took it up for five or ten terrible seconds the dew from the trees above down like rain on the unseen backs and a dull noise began not very loud at first and little could not tell what it was but it grew and grew and lifted up one fore foot and then the other and brought them down on the ground one two one two as steadily as trip the were stamping altogether now and it sounded like a beaten at the mouth of a cave the dew fell from the trees till there was no more left to fall and the went on and the ground rocked and shivered and little put his hands up to his ears to shut out the sound but it was all one gigantic jar that ran through him this stamp of hundreds of heavy feet on the raw earth once or twice he could feel and all the others forward a few strides and the would change to the crushing sound of green things the book being bruised but in a minute or two the boom of feet on hard earth began again a tree was creaking and groaning somewhere near him he put out his arm and felt the bark but moved forward still and he could not tell where he was in the clearing there was no sound from the except once when two or three little together then he heard a and a and the went on it must have lasted fully two hours and little ached in every nerve but he knew by the smell of the night air that the dawn was coming the morning broke in one sheet of pale yellow behind the green hills and the stopped with the first ray as though the light had been an order before little had got the ringing out of his head before even he had shifted his position there was not an elephant in sight except and the elephant with the and there was neither sign nor rustle nor whisper down the to show where the others had gone little stared again and again the clearing as he remembered it had grown in the night more trees stood in the middle of it but the and the grass at the sides had been rolled back little stared once more now he understood the the had stamped out more room had	39
stamped the thick grass and cane to the into the into tiny md the into hard earth said little and his eyes were very heavy my lord let us keep by of the and go to s camp or i shall drop from thy neck the third elephant watched the two go away wheeled round and took his own path he may have belonged to some little native king s establishment fifty or sixty or a hundred miles away two hours later as was eating early breakfast his who had been that night began to trumpet and to the shoulders with very into the camp little s face was gray and pinched and his hair was full of leaves and with dew but he tried to salute and cried faintly the dance the elephant dance i have seen it and i die as sat down he slid off his neck in a dead faint but since native children have no nerves worth speaking of in two hours he was lying very in s with s shooting coat under his head and a glass of warm milk a little brandy with a dash of inside of him and while the old hairy hunters of the sat three deep before him looking at him as though he were a spirit he told his tale in short words as a child will and wound up with now if i lie in one word send men to see and they will find tl the elephant folk have trampled down more in their dance room and they will find ten and ten and many times ten tracks leading to that dance room they made more room with i o the book their feet i have seen it took me and i saw also is very leg weary little lay back and slept all through the long afternoon and into the twilight and while he slept and followed the track of the two for fifteen miles across the hills had spent eighteen years in catching and he had only once before found such a dance place had no need to look twice at the clearing to see what had been done there or to scratch with his toe in the packed earth the child speaks truth said he all this was done last night and i have counted seventy tracks crossing the river see where s leg iron cut the bark of that tree yes she was there too they looked at one another and up and down and they wondered for the ways of are beyond the wit of any man black or white to forty years and five said have i followed my lord the elephant but never have i heard that any child of man had seen what this child has seen by all the gods of the hills it is what can we say and he shook his head when they got back to camp it was time for the evening meal ate alone in his tent but he gave orders that the camp should have two sheep and some fowls as well as a double of flour and rice and salt for he that there would be a feast big had come up hot foot from the camp in the plains to search for his son and his elephant and now that he had found them he looked of the i i at them as though he were afraid of them both and there was a feast by the blazing camp fires in front of the lines of and little was the hero of it all and the big brown elephant the and drivers and and the men who know all the secrets of breaking the wildest passed him from one to the other and they marked his forehead with blood from the breast of a newly killed cock to show that he was a and free of all the a nd at last when the flames died down and the red light of the logs made the look as though they had been dipped in blood too the head of all the drivers of all the s other self who had never seen a made road in forty years who was so great that he had no other name than leaped to his feet with little held high in the air above his head and shouted listen my brothers listen too you my lords in the lines there for i am speaking this little one shall no more be called little but of the as his great grandfather was called before him what never man has seen he has seen through the long night and the favour of the elephant folk and of the gods of the is with him he shall become a great he shall become greater than i even i he shall follow the new trail and the stale trail and the mixed trail with a clear eye he shall take no harm in the when he runs under their of the to rope the wild and if he slips before the feet of the charging bull elephant the bull elephant shall know who he is and shall not crush him my lords in the chains he whirled up the line of here is the little one that has seen your dances in your hidden places the sight that never man saw give him honour my lords my children make your salute to of the thou hast seen him at the dance and thou too my pearl among together to of the and at that last wild yell the whole line flung up their trunks till the tips touched their and broke out into the full salute the crashing trumpet peal that only the of india hears the of the but it was all for the sake of little who had seen what never man had	39
seen before the dance of the at night and alone in the heart of the hills i the book and the the song that s mother sang to the baby who poured the harvest and made the winds to blow sitting at the of a day of long ago i gave to each his portion food and toil and fate from the king upon the to the beggar at the gate all things made he the he made all thorn for the for the and mother s heart for sleepy head o little son of mine wheat he gave to rich folk to the poor broken scraps for holy men that beg from door to door cattle to the tiger to the and rags and bones to wicked wolves without the wall at night naught he found too lofty none he saw too low beside him watched them come and go thought to cheat her husband turning to jest stole the little and hid it in her breast so she him the turn and see tall are the heavy are the but this was least of little things o little son of mine when the was ended she said master of a million mouths is not one laughing made answer all have had their part even he the little one hidden thy heart from her breast she plucked it the thief saw the least of little things a new grown leaf saw and feared and wondered making prayer to who hath surely given meat to all that live all things made he the he made all thorn for the for the and mother s heart for sleepy head o little son of mine servants of the queen you can work it out hy or by simple of three but the way of is not the way of vou can twist it you can urn it you can it till you drop but the way of s n l the way of pop it had been for one whole month on a camp of thirty thousand men and thousands of horses and all gathered together at a place called to be by the of india he was receiving a visit from the of a wild king of a very wild country and the had brought with him for a eight hundred men and horses who had never seen a camp or a before in their lives savage men and savage horses from somewhere at the back of central asia every night a mob of these horses would be sure to break their heel ropes and up and down the camp through the mud in the dark or the would break loose and run about and fall over the ropes of the tents and you can imagine how pleasant that was for men trying to go to sleep my tent lay far away from the lines and i servants of the queen thought it was safe but one night a man his head in and shouted get out quick they re coming my tent s gone i knew who they were so i put on my boots and and out into the little my fox went out through the other side and then there was a roaring and a and and i saw the tent cave in as the pole snapped and begin to dance about like a mad ghost a had into it and wet and angry as i was i could not help laughing then i ran on because i did not know how many might have got loose and before long i was out of sight of the camp my way through the mud at last i fell over the tail end of a gun and by that knew i was somewhere near the lines where the cannon were at night as i did not want to about any more in the and the dark i put my over the of one gun and made a sort of with two or three that i found and lay along the tail of another gun wondering where had got to and where i might be just as i was getting ready to go to sleep i heard a of harness and a and a mule passed me shaking his wet ears he belonged to a screw gun battery for i could hear the rattle of the and rings and chains and things on his saddle the screw guns are tiny little cannon made in two pieces that are together when the time comes to use them they are taken up mountains anywhere that a mule can find a road and they are very useful for fighting in rocky country behind the mule there was a i the book with his big soft feet and slipping in the mud and his neck to and fro like a strayed hen s luckily i knew enough of beast language not wild beast language but camp beast language of course from the natives to know what he was saying he must have been the one that into my tent for he called to the mule what shall i do where shall i go i have fought with a white thing that waved and it took a stick and hit me on the neck that was my broken tent pole and i was very glad to know it shall we run on oh it was you said the mule you and your friends that have been disturbing the camp all right you ll be beaten for this in the morning but i may as well give you something on account now i heard the harness as the mule backed and caught the two in the ribs that rang like a drum another time he said you ll know better than to run through a mule battery at night shouting thieves and fire sit down and	39
to be bridle wise in your business how can you do anything unless you can spin round at once when the rein is pressed on your neck it means life or death to your man and of course that s life and death to you get round with your hind legs under you the instant you feel the rein on your neck if you haven t room to swing round rear up a little and come round on your hind legs that s being bridle wise we aren t taught that way said the mule stiffly we re taught to obey the man at our head step off when he says so and step in when he says so i suppose it comes to the same thing now with all this fine fancy business and which must be very bad for your what do you do that depends said the troop horse generally i have to go in among a lot of yelling hairy men with knives long shiny knives worse than the o the book s knives and i have to take care that dick s boot is just touching the next man s boot without crushing it i can see dick s lance to the right of my right eye and i know tm safe i shouldn t care to be the man or horse that stood up to dick and me when we re in a hurry don t the knives hurt said the young mule well i got one cut across the chest once but that wasn t dick s fault a lot i should have cared whose fault it was if it hurt said the young mule you must said the troop horse if you don t trust your man you may as well run away at once that s what some of our horses do and i don t blame them as i was saying it wasn t dick s fault the man was lying on the ground and i stretched myself not to tread on him and he up at me next time i have to go over a man lying down i shall step on him hard h m said it sounds very foolish knives are dirty things at any time the proper thing to do is to climb up a mountain with a saddle hang on by all four feet and your cars too and creep and crawl and along till you come out hundreds of feet above any one else on a ledge where s there just room enough for your hoofs then you stand still and keep quiet never ask a man to hold your head j un keep quiet while the guns are being put together and then you watch the little shells drop down into the ever so far below don t you ever trip said the troop horse they say that when a mule you can split servants of the queen s a hen s ear said now and again per a badly packed saddle will upset a mule but it s very seldom i wish i could show you our business it s beautiful why it took me three years to find out what the men were driving at the science of the the book thing is never to show up against the sky line because if you do you may get fired at remember that young un always keep hidden as much as possible even if you have to go a mile out of your way i lead the battery when it comes to that sort of climbing fired at without the chance of running into the people who are firing said the troop horse thinking hard i couldn t stand that i should want to charge with dick oh no you wouldn t you know that as soon as the guns are in position they ll do all the charging that s scientific and neat but knives the baggage had been his head to and fro for some time past anxious to get a word in then i heard him say as he cleared his throat nervously i i i have fought a little but not in that climbing way or that running way no now you mention it said you don t look as though you were made for climbing or running much well how was it old hay the proper way said the we all sat down oh my and said the troop horse under his breath sat down we sat down a hundred of us the went on in a big square and the men piled our our and outside the square and they fired over our backs the men did on all sides of the square what sort of men any men that came along said the troop horse they teach us in riding servants of the queen school to he down and let our masters fire across us but dick is the only man td trust to do that it my and besides i can t see with my head on the ground what does it matter who fires across you said the there are plenty of men and plenty of other close by and a great many clouds of smoke i am not frightened then i sit still and wait and yet said you dream bad dreams and upset the camp at night well well before rd lie down not to speak of sitting down and let a man fire across me my heels and his head would have something to say to each other did you ever hear anything so awful as that there was a long silence and then one of the gun lifted up his big head and said this is very foolish indeed there is only one way of fighting oh go on said please don t mind me i suppose	39
you fellows fight standing on your tails only one way said the two together they must have been this is that way to put all twenty yoke of us to the big gun as soon as two tails trumpets two tails is camp for the elephant what does two tails trumpet for said the young mule to show that he is not going any nearer to the smoke on the other side two tails is a great coward then we the big gun all together hey a l i we do not climb like cats nor run like we go across the book the level plain twenty yoke of us till we arc again and we while the big guns talk across the plain to some town with mud walls and pieces of the wall fall out and the dust goes up as though many cattle were coming home oh and you choose that time for said the young mule that time or any other eating is always good we eat till we are up again and the gun back to where two tails is waiting for it sometimes there are big guns in the city that speak back and some of us are killed and then there is all the more for those that are left this is fate nothing but fate none the less two tails is a great coward that is the proper way to fight we are brothers from our father was a sacred bull of we have spoken well certainly learned something to night s id the troop horse do you gentlemen of the screw gun battery feel inclined to eat when you are being fired at with big guns and two tails is behind you about as much as we feel inclined to sit down and let men all over us or run into people with knives i never heard such stuff a mountain ledge a well balanced load a driver you can trust to let you pick your own way and fm your mule but the other things no said with a stamp of his foot of course said the troop horse every one is not made in the same way and i can quite see that your family on your father s side would ft l to understand a great many things servants of the queen never you mind my family on my father s side said angrily for every mule hates to be reminded that his father was a donkey my father was a southern gentleman and he could pull down and bite and kick into rags every horse he came across remember that you big brown means wild horse without any breeding imagine the feelings of if a horse called him a and you can imagine how the horse felt i saw the white of his eye glitter in the dark see here you son of an imported he said between his teeth i d have you know that i m related on my mother s side to of the cup and where i come from we aren t accustomed to being ridden over by any mouthed pig headed mule in a pop gun battery are you ready on your hind legs they both reared up facing each other and i was expecting a furious fight when a voice called out of the darkness to the right children what are you fighting about there be quiet both beasts dropped down with a of disgust for neither horse nor mule can bear to listen to an elephant s voice it s two tails said the troop horse i can t i stand him a tail at each end isn t fair my feelings exactly said crowding into the troop horse for company we re very alike in some things i suppose we ve inherited them from our mothers the book said the troop horse it s not worth quarrelling about hi two tails are you tied up yes said two tails with a laugh all up his trunk tm for the night ive heard what you fellows have been saying but don t be afraid fm not coming over the and the said half aloud afraid of two tails what nonsense and the went on we are sorry that you heard but it is true two tails why are you afraid of the guns when they fire well said two tails rubbing one hind leg against the other exactly like a little boy saying a poem i don t quite know whether you d understand we don t but we have to pull the guns said the i know it and i know you are a good deal than you think you are but it s different with me my battery captain called me a the other day that s another way of fighting i suppose said who was recovering his spirits you don t know what that means of course but i do it means and between and that is just where i am i can see inside my head what will happen when a shell bursts and you can t i can said the troop horse at least a little bit i try not to think about it i can see more than you and i do think about it i know there s a great deal of me to take care of and i know that nobody knows how to cure me when tm sick all they can do is to stop my servants of the queen driver s pay till i get well and i can t trust my driver ah said the troop horse that explains it i can trust dick you could put a whole regiment of on my back without making me feel any better i know just enough to be uncomfortable and not enough to go on in spite of it we do not understand said	39
the i know you don t i m not talking to you you don t know what blood is we do said the it is red stuff that into the ground and smells the troop horse gave a kick and a bound and a don t talk of it he said i can smell it now just thinking of it it makes me want to run when i haven t dick on my back but it is not here said the and the why are you so stupid it s vile stuff said i don t want to run but i don t want to talk about it there you are said two tails waving his tail to explain surely yes we have been here all night said the two tails stamped his foot till the iron ring on it oh i m not talking to ou you can t see inside your heads no we see out of our four eyes said the we see straight in front of us if i could do and nothing else you wouldn t he needed to pull the big guns at all if i was like the book my captain he can see things inside his head before the firing begins and he shakes all over but he knows too much to run away if i was like him i could pull the guns but if i were as wise as all that i should never be here i should be a king in the forest as i used to be sleeping half the day and bathing when i liked i haven t had a good bath for a month that s all very fine said but giving a thing a long name doesn t make it any better h sh said the troop horse i think i understand what two tails means you ll understand better in a minute said two tails angrily now you just explain to me why you don t like this he began furiously at the top of his trumpet stop that said and the troop horse together and i could hear them stamp and shiver an elephant s is always nasty especially on a dark night i shan t stop said two tails won t you explain that please then he stopped suddenly and i heard a little in the dark and knew that had found me at last she knew as well as i did that if there is one thing in the world the elephant is more afraid of than another it is a little barking dog so she stopped to bully two tails in his and round his big feet two tails and go away little dog he said don t snuff at my ankles or i ll kick at you good little dog nice little then go home you servants of the queen little beast oh why doesn t some one take her away she ll bite me in a minute seems to me said to the troop horse that our friend two tails is afraid of most things now if i had a full meal for every dog i ve ki across the parade ground i should be as fat as two tails nearly i whistled and ran up to me muddy all over and licked my nose and told me a long tale about hunting for me all through the camp i never let her know that i understood beast talk or she would have taken all sorts of liberties so i her into the breast of my overcoat and two tails and stamped and growled to himself extraordinary most extraordinary he said it runs in our family now where has that nasty little beast gone to i heard him feeling about with his trunk we all seem to be affected in various ways he went on blowing his nose now you gentlemen were alarmed i believe when i not alarmed exactly said the troop horse but it made me feel as though i had where my saddle ought to be don t begin again i m frightened of a little dog and the here is frightened by bad dreams in the night it is very lucky for us that we haven t all got to fight in the same way said the troop horse what i want to know said the young mule who had been quiet for a long time what want to know is why we have to fight at all because we re told to said the troop horse with a of contempt the book orders said the mule and his teeth snapped hai it is an order said the with a and two tails and the repeated yes but who gives the orders said the the man who walks at your head or sits on your back or holds the nose rope or your tail said and the troop horse and the and the one after the other but who gives them the orders now you want to know too much young un said and that is one way of getting kicked all you have to do is to obey the man at your head and ask no questions he s quite right said two tails i can t always obey because i m and between but s right obey the man next to you who gives the order or you ll stop all the battery beside getting a the gun got up to go morning is coming they said we will go back to our lines it is true that we only see out of our eyes and we are not very clever but still we arc the only people to night who have not been afraid good night you brave people nobody answered and the troop horse said to change the conversation where s that little dog a dog means a man somewhere about here	39
i am under the gun tail with my man you big beast of a you you upset our tent my man s very angry servants of the queen said the he must be white of course he is said do you suppose tm looked after by a black driver i said the let us get away quickly they plunged forward in the mud and managed somehow to run their yoke on the pole of an where it now you have done it said calmly don t struggle youve hung up till daylight what on earth s the matter the went off into the long hissing that indian cattle give and pushed and crowded and and stamped and slipped and nearly fell down in the mud savagely you ll break your necks in a minute said the troop horse what s the matter with white men i live with em they eat us pull said the near the yoke snapped with a and they off together i never knew before what made indian cattle so scared of englishmen we eat beef a thing that no cattle driver touches and of course the cattle do not like it may i be with my own chains who d have thought of two big like those losing their heads said never mind i m going to look at this man most of the white men i know have things in their pockets said the troop horse i ll leave you then i can t say i m over fond o the book of em myself besides white men who haven t a place to sleep in are more than likely to be thieves and a good deal of government property on my back come along young un and we ll go back to our lines good night see you on parade to morrow i suppose good night old hay try to control your feelings won t you good night two tails if you pass lis on the ground tomorrow don t trumpet it spoils our formation the mule off with the limp of an old as the troop horse s head came into my breast and i gave him while who is a most conceited little dog told him about the scores of horses that she and i kept i m coming to the parade to morrow in my she said where will you be on the left hand of the second i set the time for all my troop little lady he said politely now i must go back to dick my tail s all muddy and he ll have two hours hard work dressing me for parade the big parade of all the thirty thousand men was held that afternoon and and i had a good place close to the and the of with his high big black hat of wool and the great diamond star in the centre the first part of the review was all sunshine and the went by in wave upon wave of legs all moving together and guns all in a line till our eyes grew dizzy then the cavalry came up to the beautiful cavalry of and cocked her ear where she sat on the dog servants of the queen cart the second of the shot by and there was the troop horse with his tail hke spun silk his head pulled into his breast one ear forward and one back setting the time for all his his legs going as smoothly as music then the big guns came by and i saw two tails and two other in line to a forty siege gun while twenty yoke of oxen walked behind the seventh pair had a new yoke and they looked rather stiff and tired last came the screw guns and the mule carried himself as though he commanded all the troops and his harness was and polished till it winked i gave a cheer all by myself for the mule but he never looked right or left the rain began to fall again and for a while it was too misty to see what the troops were doing they had made a big half circle across the plain and were spreading out into a line that line grew and grew and grew till it was three quarters of a mile long from wing to wing one solid wall of men horses and guns then it came on straight towards the and the and as it got nearer the ground began to shake like the deck of a steamer when the engines are going fast unless you have been there you cannot imagine what a effect this steady come down of troops has on the spectators even when they know it is only a review i looked at the up till then he had not shown the shadow of a sign of astonishment or anything else but now his eyes began to get bigger and bigger and he picked up the reins on his horse s neck and looked behind him ss the book for a minute it seemed as though he were going to draw his sword and his way out through the english men and women in the carriages at the back then the advance stopped dead the ground stood still the whole line saluted and thirty bands began to play all together that was the end of the review and the went off to their in the rain and an band struck up with the animals went in two by two the animals went in two by two the elephant and the battery and they all got into the ark for to get out of the rain then i heard an old long haired central chief who had come down with the asking questions of a native officer now said he in what manner was this wonderful thing done and the officer answered an	39
the sandy margin and return wet and well out to the admiring herd was a thing that all tall young took a delight in precisely because they knew that at any moment or might leap upon them and bear them down but now all that life and death fun was ended and the people came up starved and weary to the river tiger bear deer and pig all together drank the waters and hung above them too exhausted to move off the deer and the pig had all day in search of something better than dried bark and withered leaves the had found no to be cool in and no green crops to steal the had left the and come down to the river in the hope of finding a stray they curled round wet stones and never offered to strike when the nose of a pig them the river had long ago been killed by of hunters and the fish had buried themselves deep in the dry mud how fear came only the peace rock lay across the like a long snake and the little tired as they dried on its hot side it was here that came nightly for the cool and the companionship the most hungry of his enemies would hardly have cared for the boy then his naked hide made him seem more lean and wretched than any of his fellows his hair was to tow color by the sun his ribs stood out like the ribs of a basket and the on his knees and elbows where he was used to track on all gave his limbs the look of knotted grass stems but his eye under his was cool and quiet for was his adviser in this time of trouble and told him to go quietly hunt slowly and never on any account to lose his temper it is an evil time said the black one furnace hot evening but it will go if we can live till the end is thy stomach full man there is stuff in my stomach but i get no good of it think you the rains have forgotten us and will never come again not i we shall see the in blossom yet and the little all fat with new grass come down to the peace rock and hear the news on my back little brother the second book this is no time to carry weight i can still stand alone but indeed we be no we too looked along his ragged dusty flank and whispered last night i killed a under the yoke so low was i brought that i think i should not have dared to spring if he had been loose laughed yes we be great hunters now said he i am very bold to eat and the two came down together through the to the river bank and the lace work of that ran out from it in every direction the water cannot live long said joining them look across yonder are like the roads of man on the level plain of the further bank the stiff grass had died standing and dying had the beaten tracks of the deer and the pig all heading toward the river had striped that plain with dusty driven through the ten foot grass and early as it was each long avenue was full of first comers hastening to the water you could hear the does and in the snuff like dust up stream at the bend of the pool how fear came round the peace rock and of the water stood the wild elephant with his sons gaunt and gray in the moonlight rocking to and fro always rocking below him a little were the of the deer below these again the pig and the wild and on the opposite bank where the tall trees came down to the water s edge was the place set apart for the of flesh the tiger the wolves the and the bear and the others we are under one law indeed said into the water and looking across at the lines of horns and starting eyes where the deer and the pig pushed each other to and fro good all you of my blood he added lying down at full length one flank thrust out of the and then between his teeth but for that which is the law it would be very good hunting the quick spread ears of the deer caught the last sentence and a frightened whisper ran along the ranks the remember the peace there peace the wild elephant the holds this is no time to talk of hunting who should know better than i answered rolling his yellow eyes up stream i lo the second book am an of a of would i could get good from branches we wish so very greatly a young who had only been born that spring and did not at all like it wretched as the people were even could not help while lying on his elbows in the warm water laughed aloud and beat up the with his feet well spoken little bud horn when the ends that shall be remembered in thy favor and he looked keenly through the darkness to make sure of the again gradually the talking spread up and down the drinking places one could hear the pig asking for more room the among themselves as they out across the sand bars and the deer telling pitiful stories of their long foot sore wanderings in quest of food now and again they asked some question of the of flesh across the river but all the news was bad and the roaring hot wind of the came and went between the rocks and the rattling branches and scattered twigs and dust on the water how fear came ii the men folk too they die beside their said a	39
young i passed three between sunset and night they lay still and their with them we also shall lie still in a little the river has fallen since last night said o hast thou ever seen the like of this it will pass it will pass said water along his back and sides we have one here that cannot endure long said and he looked toward the boy he loved i said indignantly sitting up in the water i have no long fur to cover my bones but but if thy hide were taken off shook all over at the idea and said severely man that is not to tell a teacher of the law never have i been seen without my hide nay i meant no harm but only that thou art as it were like the in the and i am the same all naked now that brown of thine was sitting cross legged and explaining things with his fore the second book finger in his usual way when put out a and pulled him over backward into the water worse and worse said the black as the boy rose first is to be and now he is a be careful that he does not do what the ripe do and what is that said off his guard for the minute though that is one of the oldest catches in the break thy head said quietly pulling him under again it is not good to make a jest of thy teacher said the bear when had been for the third time not good what would ye have that naked thing running to and fro makes a of those who have once been good hunters and the best of us by the for sport this was the lame tiger down to the water he waited a little to enjoy the sensation he made among the deer on the opposite bank then he dropped his square head and began to lap growling the has become a ground for naked now look at me man looked stared rather as how fear came as he knew how and in a minute turned away uneasily man this and that he going on with his drink the is neither man nor or he would have been afraid next season i shall have to beg his leave for a drink that may come too said looking him steadily between the eyes that may come too what new shame hast thou brought here the lame tiger had dipped his chin and in the water and dark streaks were floating from it down stream man said coolly i killed an hour since he went on and growling to himself the line of beasts shook and wavered to and fro and a whisper went up that grew to a cry man man he has killed man then all looked toward the wild elephant but he seemed not to hear never does anything till the time comes and that is one of the reasons why he lives so long at such a season as this to kill man was no other game said scornfully drawing himself out of the water and shaking each cat fashion as he did so the second book i killed for choice not for food the whisper began again and s watchful little white eye cocked itself in s direction for choice now come i to drink and make me clean again is there any to forbid s back began to curve like a in a high wind but lifted up his trunk and spoke quietly thy kill was from choice he asked and when asks a question it is best to answer even so it was my right and my night thou o spoke almost courteously yes i know answered and after a little silence hast thou drunk thy fill for to night yes go then the river is to drink and not to none but the lame tiger would so have boasted of his right at this season when when we suffer together man and people alike clean or get to thy the last words rang out like silver trumpets and s three sons rolled forward half a pace though there was no need away not daring to growl for he knew what how fear came every one else knows that when the last comes to the last is the master of the what is this right speaks of whispered in s ear to kill man is always shameful the law says so and yet says ask him i do not know little brother right or no right if had not spoken i would have taught that lame butcher his lesson to come to the peace rock fresh from a kill of man and to boast of it is a s trick besides he the good water waited for a minute to pick up his courage because no one cared to address directly and then he cried what is s right o both banks echoed his words for all the people of the are intensely curious and they had just seen something that none except who looked very thoughtful seemed to understand it is an old tale said a tale older than the keep silence along the banks and i will tell that tale there was a minute or two of pushing and among the pigs and the and then the leaders of the herds one after another we wait and strode forward i the second book till he was nearly knee deep in the pool by the peace rock lean and wrinkled and though he was he looked what the knew him to be their master ye know children he began that of all things ye most fear man and there was a of agreement this tale touches thee little brother said to i i am of	39
the pack a hunter of the free people answered what have i to do with man and ye do not know why ye fear man went on this is the reason in the beginning of the and none know when that was we of the walked together having no fear of one another in those days there was no and leaves and flowers and fruit grew on the same tree and we ate nothing at all except leaves and flowers and grass and fruit and bark i am glad i was not born in those days said bark is only good to claws and the lord of the was tha the first of the he drew the out of deep waters with his trunk and where he how fear came made in the ground with his there the rivers ran and where he struck with his foot there rose of good water and when he blew through his trunk thus the trees fell that was the manner in which the was made by tha and so the tale was told to me it has not lost fat in the telling whispered and laughed behind his hand in those days there was no corn or or or sugar cane nor were there any little huts such as ye have all seen and the people knew nothing of man but lived in the together making one people but presently they began to dispute over their food though there was enough for all they were lazy each wished to eat where he lay down as sometimes we can do now when the spring rains are good tha the first of the was busy making new and leading the rivers in their beds he could not walk in all places therefore he made the first of the the master and the judge of the to whom the people should bring their in those days the first of the ate fruit and grass with the others he was as large as i am and he was very beautiful in color all over like the blossom of the yellow there was i the second book never nor bar upon his hide in those good days when this the was new all the people came before him without fear and his word was the law of all the we were then remember ye one people yet upon a night there was a dispute between two a quarrel such as ye now settle with the horns and the fore feet and it is said that as the two spoke together before the first of the lying among the flowers a buck pushed him with his horns and the first of the forgot that he was the master and judge of the and leaping upon that buck broke his neck till that night never one of us had died and the first of the seeing what he had done and being made foolish by the scent of the blood ran away into the of the north and we of the left without a judge fell to fighting among ourselves and tha heard the noise of it and came back then some of us said this and some of us said that but he saw the dead buck among the flowers and asked who had killed and we of the would not tell because the smell of the blood made us foolish we ran to and fro in circles and crying out and shaking our heads then tha gave an order to how fear came the trees th t hang low and to the trailing of the that they should mark the of the buck so that he should know him again and he said who will now be master of the people then up leaped the gray who lives in the branches and said i will now be master of the at this tha laughed and said so be it and went away very angry children ye know the gray he was then as he is now at the first he made a wise face for himself but in a little while he began to scratch and to leap up and down and when tha came back he found the gray hanging head down from a bough mocking those who stood below and they him again and so there was no law in the only foolish talk and senseless words then tha called us all together and said the first of your masters has brought death into the and the second shame now it is time there was a law and a law that ye must not break now ye shall know fear and when ye have found him ye shall know that he is your master and the rest shall follow then we of the said what is fear and tha said seek till ye find so we went up and the second book down the seeking for fear and presently the said the leader of the from their sand bank yes it was the they came back with the news that in a cave in the sat fear and that he had no hair and went upon his hind legs then we of the followed the herd till we came to that cave and fear stood at the mouth of it and he was as the had said and he walked upon his hinder legs when he saw us he cried out and his voice filled us with the fear that we have now of that voice when we hear it and we ran away upon and tearing each other because we were afraid that night so it was told to me we of the did not lie down together as used to be our custom but each tribe drew off by itself the pig with the pig the deer with the deer horn to horn to like keeping	39
to like and so lay shaking in the only the first of the was not with us for he was still hidden in the of the north and when word was brought to him of the thing we had seen in the cave he said i will go to this thing and break his neck so he ran all the night till he came to the cave but the trees and how fear came the on his path remembering the order that tha had given let down their branches and marked him as he ran drawing their fingers across his back his flank his forehead and his wherever they touched him there was a mark and a upon his yellow hide and those do his children wear to this day when he came to the cave fear the one put out his hand and called him the striped one that comes by night and the first of the was afraid of the one and ran back to the howling chuckled quietly here his chin in the water so loud did he howl that tha heard him and said what is the sorrow and the first of the lifting up his to the new made sky which is now so old said give me back my power o tha i am made ashamed before all the and i have run away from a one and he has called me a shameful name and why said tha because i am with the mud of the said the first of the swim then and roll on the wet grass and if it be mud it will wash away said tha and the first of the swam and rolled and rolled upon the grass till the ran the second book round and round before his eyes but not one little bar upon all his hide was changed and tha watching him laughed then the first of the said what have i done that this comes to me tha said thou hast killed the buck and thou hast let death loose in the and with death has come fear so that the people of the are afraid one of the other as thou art afraid of the one the first of the said they will never fear me for i knew them since the beginning tha said go and see and the first of the ran to and fro calling aloud to the deer and the pig and the and the and all the and they all ran away from him who had been their judge because they were afraid then the first of the came back and his pride was broken in him and beating his head upon the ground he tore up the earth with all his feet and said remember that i was once the master of the do not forget me o tha let my children remember that i was once without shame or fear and tha said this much i will do because thou and i together saw the made for one night in each year it shall be as it was before the buck was killed for thee and for thy children in that one night if ye how fear came meet the one and his name is man ye shall not be afraid of him but he shall be afraid of you as though ye were judges of the and masters of all things show him mercy in that night of his fear for thou hast known what fear is then the first of the answered i am content but when next he drank he saw the black upon his flank and his side and he remembered the name that the one had given him and he was angry for a year he lived in the waiting till tha should keep his promise and upon a night when the of the moon the evening star stood clear of the he felt that his night was upon him and he went to that cave to meet the one then it happened as tha promised for the one fell down before him and lay along the ground and the first of the struck him and broke his back for he thought that there was but one such thing in the and that he had killed fear then above the kill he heard tha coming down from the woods of the north and presently the voice of the first of the which is the voice that we hear now the thunder was rolling up and down the dry the second book hills but it brought no rain only that along the and went on that was the voice he heard and it said is this thy mercy the first of the licked his lips and said what matter i have killed fear and tha said o blind and foolish thou hast the feet of death and he will follow thy trail till thou thou hast taught man to kill the first of the standing stiffly to his kill said he is as the buck was there is no fear now i will judge the once more and tha said never again shall the come to thee they shall never cross thy trail nor sleep near thee nor follow after thee nor by thy only fear shall follow thee and with a blow that thou not see he shall bid thee wait his pleasure he shall make the ground to open under thy feet and the to twist about thy neck and the tree trunks to grow together about thee higher than thou leap and at the last he shall take thy hide to wrap his when they are cold thou hast shown him no mercy and none will he show thee the first of the was very bold for his night was still on him and he said the how fear came promise of tha	39
a blaze of glory for the himself made a special visit to confer upon the the grand the second book cross of the star of india all diamonds and ribbons and and at the same ceremony while the cannon was made a knight commander of the order of the indian empire so that his name stood sir k c i e that evening at dinner in the big tent he stood up with the and the collar of the order on his breast and replying to the toast of his master s health made a speech few englishmen could have next month when the city had returned to its quiet he did a thing no englishman would have dreamed of doing for so far as the world s affairs went he died the order of his went back to the indian government and a new prime minister was appointed to the charge of affairs and a great game of general post began in all the subordinate the priests knew what had happened and the people guessed but india is the one place in the world where a man can do as he pleases and nobody asks why and the fact that sir k c i e had resigned position palace and power and taken up the begging bowl and colored dress of a or holy man was considered nothing extra the miracle of ordinary he had been as the old law twenty years a youth twenty years a though he had never carried a weapon in his life and twenty years head of a household he had used his wealth and his power for what he knew both to be worth he had taken honor when it came his way he had seen men and cities far and near and men and cities had stood up and honored him now he would let these things go as a man drops the cloak he no longer needs behind him as he walked through the city gates an skin and brass handled under his arm and a begging bowl of polished brown de his hand alone with eyes cast on the ground behind him they were firing from the in honor of his happy successor nodded all that life was ended and he bore it no more ill will or good will than a man bears to a dream of the night he was a a wandering depending on his neighbors for his daily bread and so long as there is a morsel to divide in india neither priest nor beggar he had never in his life tasted meat and very seldom eaten even fish a five pound note would have covered his personal expenses the second book for food through any one of the many years in which he had been absolute master of millions of money even when he was being in london he had held before him his dream of peace and quiet the long white dusty indian road printed all over with bare feet the incessant slow moving traffic and the sharp smelling wood smoke curling up under the fig trees in the twilight where the sit at their evening meal when the time came to make that dream true the prime minister took the proper steps and in three days you might more easily have found a in the of the long atlantic seas than among the gathering separating millions of india at night his skin was spread where the darkness overtook him sometimes in a by the roadside sometimes by a mud pillar shrine of where the who are another misty division of holy men would receive him as they do those who know what and divisions are worth sometimes on the outskirts of a little village where the children would steal up with the food their parents had prepared and sometimes on the pitch of the bare grounds where the flame of his stick fire the miracle of the drowsy it was all one to or as he called himself now earth people and food were all one but unconsciously his feet drew him away northward and eastward from the south to from to from to ruined and then up stream along the dried bed of the river that fills only when the rain falls in the hills till one day he saw the far line of the great then smiled for he remembered that his mother was of birth from way a hill woman always for the and that the least touch of hill blood draws a man at the end back to where he belongs yonder said the lower slopes of the where the stand up like seven yonder i shall sit down and get knowledge and the cool wind of the whistled about his ears as he trod the road that led to the last time he had come that way it had been in state with a cavalry escort to visit the and most of and the two had talked for an hour together about mutual friends in london and what the in the second book common folk really thought of things this time paid no calls but leaned on the rail of the watching that glorious view of the plains spread out forty miles below till a native policeman told him he was traffic and reverently to the law because he knew the value of it and was seeking for a law of his own then he moved on and slept that night in an empty hut at which looks like the very last end of the earth but it was only the beginning of his journey he followed the road the little ten foot track that is out of solid the miracle of rock or out on over a thousand feet deep that into warm wet shut in valleys and out across bare grassy hill shoulders where the	39
sun strikes like a burning glass or turns through dripping dark forests where the tree dress the trunks from head to heel and the calls to his mate and he met with their dogs and flocks of sheep each sheep with a little bag of on his back and wandering wood and and from coming into india on pilgrimage and of little solitary hill states furiously on ring and or the of a paying a visit or else for a long clear day he would see nothing more than a black bear and below in the valley when he first started the roar of the world he had left still rang in his ears as the roar of a rings long after the train has passed through but when he had put the pass behind him that was all done and was alone with himself walking wondering and thinking his eyes on the ground and his thoughts with the clouds one evening he crossed the highest pass he had met till then it had been a two days climb the second book and came out on a line of snow peaks that all the horizon mountains from fifteen to twenty thousand feet high looking almost near enough to hit with a stone though they were fifty or sixty miles away the pass was crowned with dense dark forest wild cherry wild olive and wild but mostly which is the and under the shadow of the stood a deserted shrine to who is who is who is sometimes against the swept the stone floor clean smiled at the grinning statue made himself a little mud fireplace at the back of the shrine spread his skin on a bed of fresh pine needles tucked his his brass handled under his and sat down to rest immediately below him the fell away clean and cleared for fifteen hundred feet where a little village of stone walled houses with roofs of beaten earth clung to the steep all round it the tiny fields lay out like of on the knees of the mountain and cows no bigger than between the smooth stone circles of the floors looking across the valley the eye was deceived by the size of things and could not at first realize that the miracle of what seemed to be low on the opposite mountain flank was in truth a forest of pines saw an eagle across the gigantic hollow but the great bird to a dot ere it was half way over a few bands of scattered clouds strung up and down the valley catching on a shoulder of the hills or rising up and dying out when they were level with the head of the pass and here shall i find peace said now a hill man makes nothing of a few hundred feet up or down and as soon as the villagers saw the smoke in the deserted shrine the village priest climbed up the to welcome the stranger when he met s eyes the eyes of a man used to control thousands he bowed to the earth took the begging bowl without a word and returned to the village saying we have at last a holy man never have i seen such a man he is of the plains but pale colored a of the then all the of the village said think you he will stay with us and each did her best to cook the most meal for the hill food is very simple but with and indian corn and rice and red and little fish out the second book of the stream in the valley and honey from the like built in the stone walls and dried and and wild and of flour a devout woman can make good things and it was a full bowl that the priest carried to the was he going to stay asked the priest would he need a a to beg for him had he a blanket against the cold weather was the food good ate and thanked the it was in his mind to stay that was sufficient said the priest let the begging bowl be placed outside the shrine in the hollow made by those two twisted roots and daily should the be fed for the village felt honored that such a man he looked timidly into the face should among them that day saw the end of s wanderings he had come to the place appointed for him the silence and the space after this time stopped and he sitting at the mouth of the shrine could not tell whether he were alive or dead a man with control of his limbs or a part of the hills and the clouds and the shifting rain and sunlight he would repeat a name softly to himself a hundred hundred times till at each repetition he seemed to move more and more out of his body sweeping up to the doors of some the miracle of tremendous discovery but just as the door was opening his body would drag him back and with grief he felt he was locked up again in the flesh and bones of every morning the filled begging bowl was laid silently in the of the roots outside the shrine sometimes the priest brought it sometimes a lodging in the village and anxious to get merit up the path but more often it was the woman who had cooked the meal and she would murmur hardly above her breath speak for me before the gods speak for such a one the wife of so and so now and then some bold child would be allowed the honor and would hear him drop the bowl and run as fast as his little legs could carry him but the never came down to the village it was laid out	39
like a map at his feet he could see the evening held on the circle of the because that was the only level ground could see the wonderful green of the young rice the of the indian corn the dock like patches of and in its season the red bloom of the whose tiny seeds being neither grain nor pulse make a food that can be eaten by in time of the second book when the year turned the roofs of the huts were all little squares of purest gold for it was on the roofs that they laid out their of the corn to dry and harvest and passed before his eyes all embroidered down there on the plots of fields and he thought of them all and wondered what they all led to at the long last even in india a man cannot a day sit still before things run over him as though he were a rock and in that wilderness very soon the wild the miracle of things who knew s shrine well came back to look at the intruder the the big gray of the were naturally the first for they are alive with curiosity and when they had upset the and rolled it round the floor and tried their teeth on the brass handled and made faces at the skin they decided that the human being who sat so still was harmless at evening they would leap down from the pines and beg with their hands for things to eat and then swing off in graceful curves they liked the warmth of the fire too and huddled round it till had to push them aside to throw on more fuel and in the morning as often as not he would find a sharing his blanket all day long one or r of the tribe would sit by his side staring out at the and looking wise and sorrowful after the came the that big deer which is like our red deer but stronger he wished to rub off the velvet of his horns against the cold stones of s statue and stamped his feet when he saw the man at the shrine but never moved and little by little the royal edged up and the second book his shoulder slid one cool hand along the hot and the touch soothed the fretted beast who bowed his head and very softly rubbed and off the velvet afterward the brought his and gentle things that on the holy man s blanket or would come alone at night his eyes green in the fire to take his share of fresh at last the the and almost the smallest of the came too her big ears erect even silent must needs find out what the light in the shrine meant and drop her like nose into s lap coming and going with the shadows of the fire called them all my brothers and his low call of would draw them from the forest at noon if they were within the black bear moody and suspicious who has the v shaped white mark under his chin passed that way more than once and since the showed no fear showed no anger but watched him and came closer and begged a share of the caresses and a of bread or wild often in the still when the would climb to the very crest of the pass to watch the red the miracle of day walking along the peaks of the he would find shuffling and at his heels thrusting a curious fore under fallen trunks and bringing it away with a of impatience or his early steps would wake where he lay curled up and the great brute rising erect would think to fight till he heard the s voice and knew his best friend nearly all and holy men who live apart from the big cities have the reputation of being able to work miracles with the wild things but all the miracle lies in keeping still in never making a hasty movement and for a long time at least in never looking directly at a visitor the villagers saw the outline of the like a shadow through the dark forest behind the shrine saw the the blazing in her best colors before s statue and the on their inside playing with the shells some of the children too had heard singing to himself behind the fallen rocks and the s reputation as miracle stood firm yet nothing was further from his mind than miracles he believed that all things were one big miracle and when a man knows that much he knows something to go upon he knew for a the second book certainty that there was nothing great and nothing little in this world and day and night he strove to think out his way into the heart of things back to the place whence his soul had come so thinking his hair fell down about his shoulders the stone at the side of the skin was into a little hole by the foot of his brass handled and the place between the tree trunks where the begging bowl rested day after day sunk and wore into a hollow almost as smooth as the brown shell itself and each beast knew his exact place at the fire the fields changed their colors with the seasons the floors filled and emptied and filled again and again and again and again when winter came the among the branches with light snow till the brought their sad eyed little babies up from the warmer valleys with the spring there were few changes in the village the priest was older and many of the little children who used to come with the begging dish sent their own children now and when you asked of the villagers how long their holy man had lived in s shrine at	39
the head of the pass they answered always then came such summer rains as had not been the miracle of known in the hills for many seasons through three good months the valley was wrapped in cloud and mist steady breaking off into thunder shower after thunder shower s shrine stood above the clouds for the most part and there was a whole month in which the never saw his village it was packed away under a white floor of cloud that swayed and shifted and rolled on itself and upward but never broke from its the streaming of the valley all that time he heard nothing but the sound of a million little waters overhead from the trees and along the ground through the pine needles dripping from the tongues of and in newly torn muddy channels down the slopes then the sun came out and drew forth the good incense of the and the and that far off clean smell which the hill people call the smell of the the hot sunshine lasted for a week and then the rains gathered together for their last and the water fell in sheets that off the skin of the ground and leaped back in mud heaped his fire high that night for he was sure his brothers would need warmth but never a beast came to the shrine the second book though he called and called till he dropped asleep wondering what had happened in the woods it was in the black heart of the night the rain like a thousand drums that he was roused by a at his blanket and stretching out felt the little hand of a it is better here than in the trees he said a fold of blanket take it and be warm the monkey caught his hand and pulled hard is it food then said wait awhile and i will prepare some as he to throw fuel on the fire the ran to the door of the shrine and ran back again at the man s knee what is it what is thy trouble brother said for the s eyes were full of things that he could not tell unless one of thy caste be in a trap and none set traps here i will not go into that weather look brother even the comes for shelter the deer s as he strode into the shrine against the grinning statue of he lowered them in s direction and stamped uneasily hissing through his half shut nostrils hai hai hai said the snapping his fingers is this payment for a night s the miracle of ing but the deer pushed him toward the door and as he did so heard the sound of something opening with a sigh and saw two of the floor draw away from each other while the earth below its lips now i see said no blame to my brothers that they did not sit by the fire to night the mountain is falling and yet why should i go his eye fell on the empty begging bowl and his face changed they have given me good food daily since since i came and if i am not swift to morrow there will not be one mouth in the valley indeed i must go and warn them below back there brother let me get to the fire the backed unwillingly as drove a pine torch deep into the flame it till it was well lit ah ye came to warn me he said rising better than that we shall do better than that out now and lend me thy neck brother for i have but two feet he clutched the of the with his right hand held the torch away with his left and stepped out of the shrine into the desperate night there was no breath of wind but the rain nearly drowned the as the great deer hurried down the slope sliding on his the second book as soon as they were clear of the forest more of the s brothers joined them he heard though he could not see the pressing about him and behind them the of the rain his long white hair into ropes the water beneath his bare feet and his yellow robe clung to his frail old body but he stepped down steadily leaning against the he was no longer a holy man but sir k c i e prime minister of no small state a man accustomed to command going out to save life down the steep path they poured all together the and his brothers down and down till the deer s feet and stumbled on the wall of a floor and he because he smelt man now they were at the head of the one crooked village street and the beat with his on the barred windows of the blacksmith s house as his torch blazed up in the shelter of the up and out cried and he did not know his own voice for it was years since he had spoken aloud to a man the hill falls the hill is falling up and out oh you within it is our said the blacksmith s wife he stands among his beasts gather the little ones and give the call the miracle of it ran from house to house while the beasts cramped in the narrow way and huddled round the and puffed impatiently the people hurried into the street they were no more than seventy souls all told and in the glare of the they saw their holding back the terrified while the plucked at his skirts and sat on his and roared across the valley and up the next hill shouted leave none behind we follow then the people ran as only hill folk can run for they knew that in a you must climb for the highest ground	39
across the valley they fled through the little river at the bottom and panted up the fields on the far side while the and his brethren followed up and up the opposite mountain they climbed calling to each other by name the roll call of the village and at their heels toiled the big by the failing strength of at last the deer stopped in the shadow of a deep pine wood five hundred feet up the his instinct that had warned him of the coming slide told him he would be safe here the second book dropped fainting by his side for the chill of the rain and that fierce climb were killing him but first he called to the scattered ahead stay and count your numbers then whispering to the deer as he saw the lights gather in a cluster stay with me brother i go there was a sigh in the air that grew to a and a that grew to a roar and a roar that passed all sense of hearing and the on which the villagers stood was hit in the darkness and rocked to the blow then a note as steady deep and true as the deep c of the organ drowned everything for perhaps five minutes while the very roots of the pines quivered to it it died away and the sound of the rain falling on miles of hard ground and grass changed to the muffled drum of water on soft earth that told its own tale never a not even the priest was bold enough to speak to the who had saved their lives they crouched under the pines and waited till the day when it came they looked across the valley and saw that what had been forest and field and ground was one raw red with a few trees flung head down the miracle of on the that red ran high up the hill of their refuge back the little river which had begun to spread into a brick colored lake of the village of the road to the shrine of the shrine itself and the forest behind there was not trace for one mile in width and two thousand feet in sheer depth the mountain side had come away bodily clean from head to heel and the villagers one by one crept through the wood to pray before their they saw the standing over him who fled when they came near and they heard the wailing in the branches and moaning up the hill but their was dead sitting his back against a tree his under his and his face turned to the the priest said behold a miracle after a miracle for in this very attitude must all be buried therefore where he now is we will build the temple to our holy man they built the temple before a year was ended a little stone and earth shrine and they called the hill the s and they worship there with lights and flowers and to this day but they do not know that the saint of worship is the late sir k c i e t c l d etc once prime minister of the o the second book and enlightened state of and or corresponding member of more learned and scientific societies than will ever do any good in this world or the next a song of h light was the world that he weighed in his hands oh heavy the tale of his and his lands he has gone from the and put on the and departed in guise of now the white road to is mat for his feet the and the must guard him from heat his home is the camp nd the waste and the crowd he is seeking the way as he has looked upon man and his are clear there was one there is one and but one the red mist of doing has to a cloud he has taken the path for to learn and discern of his brother the of his brother the brute and his brother the god he has gone from the council and put on the can ye hear a letting in the veil them cover them wall them round blossom and and weed let us forget the sight and the sound the smell and the touch of the breed fat black ash by the altar stone here is the white foot rain and the does bring forth in the fields and none shall them again and the blind walls unknown and none shall again i letting in the ou will remember if you have read the tales in the first book that after had pinned s hide to the council rock he told as many as were left of the pack that he would hunt in the alone and the four children of mother and father wolf said that they would hunt with him but it is not easy to change one s life all in a minute particularly in the the first thing did when the pack had off was to go to the home cave and sleep s the second book for a day and a night then he told mother wolf and father wolf as much as they could understand of his adventures among men and when he made the morning sun up and down the blade of his knife the same he had with they said he had learned something then and gray brother had to explain their share of the great drive in the and toiled up the hill to hear all about it and scratched himself all over with pure delight at the way in which had managed his war it was long after sunrise but no one dreamed of going to sleep and from time to time during the talk mother wolf would	39
throw up her head and a deep snuff of satisfaction as the wind brought her the smell of the tiger skin on the council rock but for and gray brother here said at the end i could have done nothing oh mother mother if thou seen the black herd pour down the or hurry through the gates when the man pack flung stones at me i am glad i did not see that last said mother wolf stiffly it is not my custom to suffer my to be driven to and fro like letting in the i would have taken a price from the man pack but i would have spared the woman who gave thee the milk yes i would have spared her alone peace peace said father wolf lazily our has come back again so wise that his own father must his feet and what is a cut more or less on the head leave men alone and both echoed leave men alone his head on mother wolf s side smiled and said that for his own part he never wished to see or hear or smell man again but what said one ear but what if men do not leave thee alone little brother we said gray brother looking round at the company and snapping his jaws on the last word we also might attend to that hunting said with a little of his tail looking at but why think of men now for this reason the lone wolf answered when that yellow thief s hide was hung up on the rock i went back along our trail to the village stepping in my tracks turning aside and the second book lying down to make a mixed trail in case one should follow us but when i had the trail so that i myself hardly knew it again the bat came between the trees and hung up above me said the village of the man pack where they cast out the man like a s nest it was a big stone that i threw chuckled who had often amused himself by throwing ripe into a s nest and racing off to the nearest pool before the caught him i asked of what he had seen he said the red flower at the gate of the village and men sat about it carrying guns now know for i have good cause looked down at the old dry on his flank and side that men do not carry guns for pleasure presently little brother a man with a gun follows our trail if indeed he be not already on it but why should he men have cast me out what more do they need said angrily thou art a man little brother returned it is not for us the free hunters to tell thee what thy brethren do or why he had just time to snatch up his as the knife cut deep into the ground below letting in the struck quicker than an average human eye could follow but was a wolf and even a dog who is very far removed from the wild wolf his can be out of deep sleep by a cart wheel touching his flank and can spring away before that wheel comes on another time said quietly returning the knife to its speak of the man pack and of in not one that is a sharp tooth said at the blade s cut in the earth but living with the man pack has spoiled thine eye little brother i could have killed a buck while thou striking sprang to his feet thrust up his head as far as he could and through every curve in his body gray brother followed his example quickly keeping a little to his left to get the wind that was blowing from the right while bounded fifty yards up wind and half crouching too looked on he could smell things as very few human beings could but he had never reached the hair like of a nose and his three months in the smoky village had set him back sadly however he his finger rubbed it on his nose and stood erect the second book to catch the upper scent which though it is the faintest is the truest man growled dropping on his said sitting down he follows our trail and yonder is the sunlight on his gun look it was no more than a splash of sunlight for a of a second on the brass of the old tower but nothing in the with just that flash except when the clouds race over the sky then a piece of or a little pool or even a highly polished leaf will flash like a but that day was and still i knew men would follow said triumphantly not for nothing have i led the pack the four said nothing but ran down hill on their melting into the thorn and as a into a lawn where go ye and without word called h sh we roll his skull here before midday gray brother answered back back and wait man does not eat man shrieked who was a wolf but now who drove the letting in the knife at me for thinking he might be man said as the four wolves turned back sullenly and dropped to heel am i to give a reason for all i choose to do said furiously that is man there speaks man muttered under his whiskers even so did men talk round the king s at we of the know that man is wisest of all if we trusted our ears we should know that of all things he is most foolish raising his voice he added the man is right in this men hunt in to kill one unless we know what the others will do is bad hunting come let us see what this	39
man means toward us we will not come gray brother growled hunt alone little brother know our own minds that skull would have been ready to bring by now had been looking from one to the other of his friends his chest heaving and his eyes full of tears he strode forward to the wolves and dropping on one knee said do i not know my mind look at me they looked uneasily and when their eyes wandered he called them back again and again the second book till their hair stood up all over their bodies and they trembled in every limb while stared and stared now said he of us five which is leader thou art leader little brother said gray brother and he licked s foot follow then said and the four followed at his heels with their tails between their legs this comes of living with the man pack said slipping down after them there is more in the now than law the old bear said nothing but he thought many things cut across noiselessly through the at right angles to s path till parting the he saw the old man his on his shoulder running up the trail of at a dog trot you will remember that had left the village with the heavy weight of s raw hide on his shoulders while and gray brother trotted behind so that the triple trail was very clearly marked presently came to where as you know had gone back and mixed it all up then he sat down and and and made little casts round and about letting in the into the to pick it up again and all the time he could have thrown a stone over those who were watching him no one can be so silent as a wolf when he does not care to be heard and though the wolves thought he moved very could come and go like a shadow they the old man as a school of ring a steamer at full speed and as they him they talked for their speech began below the lowest end of the scale that human beings can hear the other end is bounded by the high of the bat which very many people cannot catch at all from that note all the bird and bat and insect talk takes on this is better than any kill said gray brother as stooped and peered and puffed he looks like a lost pig in the by the river what does he say was muttering savagely translated he says that of wolves must have danced round me he says that he never saw such a trail in his life he says he is tired he will be rested before he it up again said coolly as he slipped round a in the game of s that they the second book were playing now what does the lean thing do eat or blow smoke out of his mouth men always play with their mouths said and the silent saw the old man fill and light and puff at a water pipe and they took good note of the smell of the tobacco so as to be sure of in the darkest night if necessary then a little knot of came down the path and naturally halted to speak to whose fame as a hunter reached for at least twenty miles round they all sat down and smoked and and the others came up and watched while began to tell the story of the devil child from one end to another with additions and inventions how he himself had really killed and how had turned himself into a wolf and fought with him all the afternoon and changed into a boy again and s rifle so that the bullet turned the corner when he pointed it at and killed one of s own and how the village knowing him to be the hunter in had sent him out to kill this devil child but meantime the village had got hold of and her husband who were undoubtedly the father and mother of this devil letting in the child and had them in their own hut and presently would torture them to make them confess they were witch and and then they would be burned to death when said the because they would very much like to be present at the ceremony said that nothing would be done till he returned because the village wished him to kill the boy first after that they would dispose of and her husband and divide their lands and among the village s husband had some remarkably fine too it was an excellent thing to destroy thought and people who entertained out of the were clearly the worst kind of but said the what would happen if the english heard of it the english they had heard were a perfectly mad people who would not let honest farmers kill in peace why said the head man of the village would report that and her husband had died of snake bite that was all arranged and the only thing now was to kill the wolf child they did not happen to have seen anything of such a creature the second book the looked round cautiously and thanked their stars they had not but they had no doubt that so brave a man as would find him if any one could the sun was getting rather low and they had an idea that they would push on to s village and see that wicked witch said that though it was his duty to kill the devil child he could not think of letting a party of men go through the which might produce the wolf demon at any minute without his escort he therefore would accompany them and if the s child appeared well he would show them how the best hunter in dealt with	39
such things the he said had given him a charm against the creature that made everything perfectly safe what says he what says he what says he the wolves repeated every few minutes and translated until he came to the witch part of the story which was a little beyond him and then he said that the man and woman who had been so kind to him were does man trap man said so he says i cannot understand the talk they are all mad together what have and her man to do with me that they should be letting in the put in a trap and what is all this talk about the red flower i must look to this whatever they would do to they will not do till returns and so thought hard with his fingers playing round the of the knife while and the went off very in single file i am going hot foot back to the man pack said at last and those said gray brother looking after the brown backs of the sing them home said with a grin i do not wish them to be at the village gates till it is dark can ye hold them gray brother his white teeth in contempt we can head them round and round in circles like if i know man that i do not need sing to them a little lest they be lonely on the road and gray brother the song need not be of the sweetest go with them and help make that song when the night is shut down meet me by the village gray brother knows the place it is no light hunting to work for a man when shall i sleep said yawning the second book though his eyes showed that he was delighted with the amusement me to sing to naked men but let us try he lowered his head so that the sound would travel and cried a long long good hunting a midnight call in the afternoon which was quite awful enough to begin with heard it and rise and fall and die off in a sort of behind him and laughed to himself as he ran through the he could see the huddled in a knot old s gun barrel waving like a leaf to every point of the compass at once then gray brother gave the la hi call for the buck driving when the pack drives the the big blue cow before them and it seemed to come from the very ends of the earth nearer and nearer and nearer till it ended in a shriek snapped off short the other three answered till even could have vowed that the full pack was in full cry and then they all broke into the magnificent morning song in the with every turn and flourish and grace note that a wolf of the pack knows this is a rough rendering of the song but you must imagine what it sounds like when it breaks the afternoon hush of the letting in the one moment past our bodies cast no shadow on the plain now clear and black they stride our track and we run home again in morning hush each rock and bush stands hard and high and raw then give the call good rest to all that keep the law now horn and our melt in covert to abide now crouched and still to cave and hill our glide now and plain man s oxen strain that draw the new now stripped and dread the dawn is red above the lit ho get to the sun s behind the breathing grass and creaking through the young the warning whispers pass by day made strange the woods we range with eyes we while down the skies the wild duck cries the the day to man the dew is dried that our hide or washed about our way and where we drank the bank is into clay o the second book the traitor dark gives up each mark of stretched or then hear the call good rest to all that keep the law but no translation can give the effect of it or the scorn the four threw into every word of it as they heard the trees crash when the men hastily climbed up into the branches and began repeating and charms then they lay down and slept for like all who live by their own exertions they were of a cast of mind and no one can work well without sleep meantime was putting the miles behind him nine to the hour swinging on delighted to find himself so fit after all his cramped months among men the one idea in his head was to get and her husband out of the trap whatever it was for he had a natural of traps later on he promised himself he would pay his debts to the village at large it was at twilight when he saw the well remembered grounds and the tree where gray brother had waited for him on the morning that he killed angry as he was at the whole breed and community of man letting in the i something jumped up in his throat and made him catch his breath when he looked at the village roofs he noticed that every one had come in from the fields unusually early and that instead of getting to their evening cooking they gathered in a crowd under the village tree and and shouted men must always be making traps for men or they are not content said last night it was but that night seems many rains ago to night it is and her man to morrow and for very many nights after it will be s turn again he crept along outside the wall till he came to s hut and looked through the window into the	39
he swung into the hut again they are all sitting round who is saying that which did not happen when his talk is finished they say they will assuredly come here with the red with fire and burn you both and then i have spoken to my man said is thirty miles from here but at we may find the english and what pack are they said i do not know they be white and it is said that they govern all the land and do not suffer people to burn or beat each other without witnesses if we can get thither to night we live otherwise we die live then no man passes the gates to night but what does he do s husband was letting in the on his hands and knees digging up the earth in one corner of the hut it is his little money said we can take nothing else ah yes the stuff that passes from hand to hand and never grows warmer do they need it outside this place also said the man stared angrily he is a fool and no devil he muttered with the money i can buy a horse we are too bruised to walk far and the village will follow us in an hour i say they will not follow till i choose but the horse is well thought of for is tired her husband stood up and knotted the last of the into his waist cloth helped through the window and the cool night air revived her but the in the looked very dark and terrible ye know the trail to whispered they nodded good remember now not to be afraid and there is no need to go quickly only only there may be some small singing in the behind you and before think you we would have risked a night in the through anything less than the fear of the second book burning it is better to be killed by beasts than by men said husband but looked at and smiled i say went on just as though he were repeating an old law for the time to a foolish i say that not a tooth in the is against you not a foot in the is lifted against you neither man nor beast shall stay you till ye come within eye shot of there will be a watch about you he turned quickly to saying he does not believe but thou wilt believe ay surely my son man ghost or wolf of the i believe i e will be afraid when he hears my people singing thou wilt know and understand go now and slowly for there is no need of any haste the gates are shut flung herself sobbing at s feet but he lifted her very quickly with a shiver then she hung about his neck and called him every name of blessing she could think of but her husband looked across his fields and said i we reach and i get the ear of the english i will bring such a against the and old and the others as shall eat the village to the bone they shall pay me letting in the twice over for my crops and my i will have a great justice laughed i do not know what justice is but come next rains and see what is left they went off toward the and mother wolf leaped from her place of hiding follow said and look to it that all the knows these two are safe give tongue a little i would call the long low howl rose and fell and saw s husband and turn half minded to run back to the hut go on called cheerfully i said there might be singing the call will follow up to it is favor of the urged her husband forward and the darkness of the shut down on them and mother wolf as rose up almost under s feet trembling with delight of the night that drives the people wild i am ashamed of thy brethren he said what did they not sing sweetly to said too well too well they made even me forget my pride and by the broken lock that freed me i went singing through the as the second book though i were out in the spring thou not hear us i had other game ask if he liked the song but where are the four i do not wish one of the man pack to leave the gates to night what need of the four then said shifting from foot to foot his eyes and louder than ever i can hold them little brother is it killing at last the singing and the sight of the men climbing up the trees have made me very ready what is man that we should care for him the naked brown the and the of earth i have followed him all day at noon in the white sunlight i him as the wolves herd buck i am as i dance with my shadow so danced i with those men look the great leaped as a leaps at a dead leaf whirling overhead struck left and right into the empty air that sung under the strokes landed noiselessly and leaped again and again while the half half growl gathered head as steam in a i am in the in the night and all my strength is in me who shall stay my stroke man with letting in the one blow of my i could beat thy head flat as a dead in the summer strike then said in the dialect of the village not the talk of the and the human words brought to a full stop flung back on that quivered under him his head just at the level of s once more stared as he had	39
stared at the rebellious full into the green eyes till the red glare behind their green went out like the light of a shut off twenty miles across the sea till the eyes dropped and the big head with them dropped lower and lower and the red of a tongue on s brother brother brother the boy whispered steadily and lightly from the neck along the heaving back be still be still it is the fault of the night and no fault of thine it was the smells of the night said this air cries aloud to me but how dost thou know of course the air round an indian village is full of all kinds of smells and to any creature who does nearly all his thinking through his nose smells are as as music and are to human beings the pan the second book ther for a few minutes longer and he lay down like a cat before a fire his tucked under his breast and his eyes half shut thou art of the and not of the he said at last and i am only a black but i love thee little brother they are very long at their talk under the tree said without noticing the last sentence must have told many tales they should come soon to drag the woman and her man out of the trap and put them into the red flower they will find that trap sprung ho ho nay listen said the fever is out of my blood now let them find me there few would leave their houses after meeting me it is not the first time i have been in a cage and i do not think they will tie me with be wise then said laughing for he was beginning to feel as reckless as the who had glided into the hut this place is rank with man but here is just such a bed as they gave me to lie upon in the king s at now i lie down heard the strings of the cot crack under the great brute s weight by the broken lock that freed me letting in the they will think they have caught big game come and sit beside me little brother we will give them good hunting together no i have another thought in my stomach the man pack shall not know what share i have in the sport make thine own hunt i do not wish to see them be it so said ah now they come the conference under the tree had been growing and at the far end of the village it broke in wild and a rush up the street of men and women waving clubs and and and knives and the were at the head of it but the mob was close at their heels and they cried the witch and the let us see if hot will make them confess burn the hut over their heads we will teach them to shelter wolf devils nay beat them first more heat the gun barrels here was some little difficulty with the catch of the door it had been very firmly fastened but the crowd tore it away bodily and the light of the streamed into the room where stretched at full length on the bed his crossed and lightly hung down over one end black as the pit the second book and terrible as a demon was there was one half minute of desperate silence as the front ranks of the crowd and tore their way back from the threshold and in that minute raised his head and yawned carefully and as he would when he wished to insult an equal the fringed lips drew back and up the red tongue curled the lower jaw dropped and dropped till you could see half way down the hot and the gigantic dog teeth stood clear to the pit of the till they rang together upper and under with the of steel faced wards shooting home round the edges of a safe next instant the street was empty had leaped back through the window and stood at s side while a yelling screaming torrent scrambled and tumbled one over another in their panic haste to get to their own huts they will not stir till day comes said quietly and now the silence of the afternoon sleep seemed to have overtaken the village but as they listened they could hear the sound of heavy grain boxes being dragged over floors and set down against doors was quite right the village would not stir till daylight sat letting in the still and thought and his face grew darker and darker what have i done said at last coming to his feet nothing but great good watch them now till the day i sleep ran off into the and dropped like a dead man across a rock and slept and slept the day round and the night back again when he was at his side and there was a newly killed buck at his feet watched curiously while went to work with his knife ate and drank and turned over with his chin in his hands the man and the woman are come safe within eye shot of said thy mother sent the word back by the they found a horse before midnight of the night they were freed and went very quickly is not that well that is well said and thy man pack in the village did not stir till the sun was high this morning then they ate their food and ran back quickly to their houses did they by chance see thee it may have been i was rolling in the dust the second book before the gate at dawn and i may have made also some small song to myself now little brother there is nothing more to do	39
come hunting with me and he has new that he wishes to show and we all desire thee back again as of old take off that look which makes even me afraid the man and woman will not be put into the red flower and all goes well in the is it not true let us forget the man pack they shall be forgotten in a little while where does feed to night where he chooses who can answer for the silent one but why what is there can do which we cannot bid him and his three sons come here to me but indeed and truly little brother it is not it is not to say come and go to remember he is the master of the and before the man pack changed the look on thy face he taught thee the master words of the that is all one i have a master word for him now bid him come to the and if he does not hear at first bid him come because of the sack of the fields of the sack of the fields of ba letting in the repeated two or three times to make sure i go can but be angry at the worst and i would give a moon s hunting to hear a master word that the silent one he went away leaving furiously with his knife into the earth had never seen human blood in his life before till he had seen and what meant much more to him s blood on the that bound her and had been kind to him and so far as he knew anything about love he loved as completely as he hated the rest of mankind but deeply as he them their talk their cruelty and their cowardice not for anything the had to offer could he bring himself to take a human life and have that terrible scent of blood back again in his nostrils his plan was but much more thorough and he laughed to himself when he thought that it was one of old s tales told under the tree in the evening that had put the idea into his head it was a master word whispered in his ear they were feeding by the river and they obeyed as though they were look where they come now and his three sons had arrived in their the second book usual way without a sound the mud of the river was still fresh on their and was thoughtfully the green stem of a young tree that he had up with his but every line in his vast body showed to who could see things when he came across them that it was not the master of the speaking to a man but one who was afraid coming before one who was not his three sons rolled side by side behind their father hardly lifted his head as gave him good hunting he kept him swinging and rocking and shifting from one foot to another for a long time before he spoke and when he opened his mouth it was to not to the i will tell a tale that was told to me by the hunter ye hunted to day said it concerns an elephant old and wise who fell into a trap and the sharpened stake in the pit him from a little above his heel to the crest of his shoulder leaving a white mark threw out his hand and as wheeled the moonlight showed a long white on his side as though he had been struck with a red hot whip men came to take him from the trap continued but he broke his ropes for he was letting in the strong and went away till his wound was healed then came he angry by night to the fields of those hunters and i remember now that he had three sons these things happened many many rains ago and very far away among the fields of what came to those fields at the next they were by me and by my three sons said and to the that follows the said there was no said and to the men that live by the green crops on the ground said they went away and to the huts in which the men slept said we tore the roofs to pieces and the swallowed up the walls said and what more said as much good ground as i can walk over in two nights from the east to the west and from the north to the south as much as i can walk over in three nights the took we let in the upon five villages and in those villages and in their lands the ground and the soft crop grounds there is not one man to day loo the second book who takes his food from the ground that was the sack of the fields of which i and my three sons did and now i ask man how the news of it came to thee said a man told me and now i see even can speak truth it was well done with the white mark but the second time it shall be done better for the reason that there is a man to direct thou the village of the man pack that cast me out they are idle senseless and cruel they play with their mouths and they do not kill the weaker for food but for sport when they are full fed they would throw their own breed into the red flower this i have seen it is not well that they should live here any more i hate them kill then said the youngest of s three sons picking up a of grass it against his fore legs and throwing it away while his little red eyes glanced from side to side what good	39
are white bones to me answered angrily am i the of a wolf to play in the sun with a raw head i have killed and his hide on the council rock but but i do not know whither is gone and my stomach is still empty letting in the loi now i will take that which i can see and touch let in the upon that village shivered and down he could understand if the worst came to the worst a quick rush down the village street and a right and left blow into a crowd or a killing of men as they in the twilight but this scheme for deliberately out an entire village from the eyes of man and beast frightened him now he saw why had sent for no one but the elephant could plan and carry through such a war let them run as the men ran from the fields of till we have the rain water for the only and the noise of the rain on the thick leaves for the of their till and i in the house of the and the buck drink at the behind the temple let in the but i but we have no quarrel with them and it needs the red rage of great pain ere we tear down the places where men sleep said doubtfully are ye the only of grass in the drive in your let the deer and the pig and the look to it ye need never show the second book a hand s breadth of hide till the fields are naked let in the there will be no killing my were red at the sack of the fields of and i would not wake that smell again nor i i do not wish even their bones to lie on the clean earth let them go and find a fresh they cannot stay here i have seen and the blood of the woman that gave me food the woman whom they would have killed but for me only the smell of the new grass on their door steps can take away that smell it burns in my mouth let in the ah said so did the of the stake burn on my hide till we watched the villages die under in the spring growth now i see thy war shall be our war we will let in the had hardly time to catch his breath he was shaking all over with rage and hate before the place where the had stood was empty and was looking at him with terror by the broken lock that freed me said the black at last art thou the naked thing i spoke for in the pack when all was young master of the when my strength goes letting in the speak for me speak for speak for us all we are before thee snapped twigs under foot that have lost their the idea of being a stray upset altogether and he laughed and caught his breath and sobbed and laughed again till he had to jump into a pool to make himself stop then he swam round and round in and out of the bars of the moonlight like the his by this time and his three sons had turned each to one point of the compass and were silently down the valleys a mile away they went on and on for two days march that is to say a long sixty miles through the and every step they took and every wave of their trunks was known and noted and talked over by and and the monkey people and all the birds then they began to feed and fed quietly for a week or so and his sons are like the rock they never hurry till they have to at the end of that time and none knew who had started it a went through the that there was better food and water to be found in such and such a valley the pig who of course will go to the ends of the earth for a full the second book meal moved first by companies over the rocks and the deer followed with the small wild that live on the dead and dying of the herds and the heavy shouldered moved parallel with the deer and the wild of the came after the the least little thing would have turned the scattered straggling that and sauntered and drank and again but whenever there was an alarm some one would rise up and soothe them at one time it would be the full of news of good feed just a little further on at another would cry cheerily and down a to show it was all empty or his mouth full of roots would alongside a wavering line and half frighten half it back to the proper road very many creatures broke back or ran away or lost interest but very many were left to go forward at the end of another ten days or so the situation was this the deer and the pig and the were round and round in a circle of eight or ten miles while the of flesh round its edge and the of that circle was the village and round the village the crops were and in the crops sat men on what they call like pigeon made of sticks at letting in the the top of four poles to scare away birds and other then the deer were no more the of flesh were close behind them and forced them forward and inward it was a dark night when and his three sons slipped down from the and broke off the poles of the with their trunks they fell as a snapped stalk of in bloom falls and the men that tumbled from	39
a had been off the roofs of the huts as you pluck water lilies and a beam had no the second book pricked him he needed only this to his full strength for of all things in the the wild elephant enraged is the most destructive he kicked backward at a mud wall that at the stroke and crumbling melted to yellow mud under the torrent of rain then he wheeled and and tore through the narrow streets leaning against the huts right and left shivering the crazy doors and up the while his three sons raged behind as they had raged at the sack of the fields of the will swallow these shells said a quiet voice in the it is the outer wall that must lie down and with the rain over his bare shoulders and arms leaped back from a wall that was settling like a tired all in good time panted oh but my were red at to the outer wall children with the head together now the four pushed side by side the outer wall split and fell and the villagers dumb with horror saw the savage clay heads of the in the ragged gap then they fled and down the valley as letting in the iii their village and tossed and trampled melted behind them a month later the place was a mound covered with soft green young stuff and by the end of the rains there was the roaring in full blast on the spot that had been under not six months before song against people will let loose against you the fleet footed vines i will call in the to stamp out yo t lines the roofs shall fade before it the house beams shall fall and the the bitter a shall cover it all in the gates of these your my people shall sing in the doors of these your the bat folk shall cling and the snake shall be your by a for the the bitter shall fruit where ye slept ye shall not see my ye shall hear them and guess by night before the moon rise i will send for my and the wolf shall be your by a removed for the the bitter shall seed where ye loved letting in the i will reap your fields before you at the hands of a host ye shall behind my for the bread that is lost and the deer shall be your oxen by a for the the bitter shall leaf where ye build i have against you the club footed vines i have sent in the to swamp out your lines the trees the trees are on you the house beams shall fall and the the bitter shall cover you all the when ye say to my brother when ye call the to meat ye may cry the full with the belly that runs on four feet law the the aged it was a thick voice a muddy voice that would have made you shudder a voice like something soft breaking in two there was a in it a and a respect the aged o companions of the river respect the aged nothing could be seen on the broad reach of the river except a little fleet of square sailed wooden pinned loaded with that had just come under the railway bridge and were driving down stream they put their clumsy over to avoid the sand bar ii the second book made by the of the bridge and as they passed three abreast the horrible voice began again o of the river respect the aged and a turned where he sat on the lifted up his hand said something that was not a blessing and the boats on through the twilight the broad indian river that looked more like a chain of little lakes than a stream was as smooth as glass reflecting the sandy red sky in mid channel but with patches of yellow and dusky purple near and under the low banks little ran into the river in the wet season but now their dry mouths hung clear above water line on the left shore and almost under the railway bridge stood a mud and brick and and stick village whose main street full of cattle going back to their ran straight to the river and ended in a sort of rude brick pier head where people who wanted to wash could in step by step that was the of the village of night was falling fast over the fields of and rice and cotton in the low lying ground yearly by the river over the that fringed the elbow of the bend and the tangled the low of the grounds behind the still the and who had been chattering and shouting over their evening drink had flown inland to crossing the of the flying and cloud upon cloud of water birds came whistling and to the cover of the reed beds there were barrel headed and black backed and with and here and there a a brought up the rear flying as though each slow stroke would be his last respect the aged of the river respect the aged the half turned his head a little in the direction of the voice and landed on the sand bar below the bridge then you saw what a brute he really was his back view was immensely respectable for he stood nearly six feet high and looked rather like a very proper bald headed parson in front it was different for his ally like head and neck had not a feather to them and there was a horrible raw skin on his neck under his chin a hold all for the things his might steal his legs were long and thin and i the second book but he moved them delicately and looked at them	39
with pride as he down his tail feathers glanced over the smooth of his shoulder and into stand at attention a little who had been on a low bluff cocked up his ears and tail and across the to join the he was the lowest of his caste not that the best of are good for much but this one was peculiarly low being half a beggar half a criminal a up of village rubbish heaps desperately timid or wildly bold hungry and full of cunning that never did him any good he said shaking himself as he landed may the red destroy the dogs of this village i have three for each upon me and all because i looked only looked mark you at an old shoe in a cow can i eat mud he scratched himself under his left ear i heard said the in a voice like a blunt saw going through a thick board i heard there was a new born in that same shoe to hear is one thing to know is another said the who had a very fair knowledge the of picked up by listening to men round the village fires of an evening quite true so to make sure i took care of that while the dogs were busy elsewhere they were very busy said the well i must not go to the village hunting for scraps yet awhile and so there truly was a blind in that shoe it is here said the over his at his full a small thing but acceptable now that charity is dead in the world the world is iron in these days the then his restless eye caught the least possible ripple on the water and he went on quickly life is hard for us all and i doubt not that even our excellent master the pride of the and the envy of the river a liar a and a were all out of the same r said the to nobody in particular for he was rather a fine sort of a liar on his own account when he took the trouble yes the envy of the river the repeated raising his voice even he i doubt not finds that since the bridge has been built good food is more scarce but on the other hand though i would by no means say this to his the second book noble face he is so wise and so virtuous as i alas am not when the owns he is gray how black must the be muttered the he could not see what was coming that his food never fails and in consequence there was a soft grating sound as though a boat had just touched in water the spun round quickly and faced it is always best to face the creature he had been talking about it was a twenty four foot in what looked like plate studded and and the yellow points of his upper teeth just overhanging his beautifully lower jaw it was the blunt of older than any man in the village who had given his name to the village the demon of the ford before the railway bridge came murderer man and local in one he lay with his chin in the keeping his place by an almost invisible rippling of his tail and well the knew that one stroke of that same tail in the water could carry the up the bank with the rush of a met protector of the poor he the at every word a voice was heard and we came in the hopes of sweet conversation my presumption while waiting here led me indeed to speak of thee it is my hope that nothing was overheard now the had spoken just to be listened to for he knew flattery was the best way of getting things to eat and the knew that the had spoken for this end and the knew that the knew and the knew that the knew that the knew and so they were all very contented together the old brute pushed and panted and up the bank respect the aged and and all the time his little eyes burned like coals under the heavy eyelids on the top of his head as he his barrel body along between his legs then he settled down and accustomed as the was to his ways he could not help starting for the time when he saw how exactly the a log adrift on the bar he had even taken pains to lie at the exact angle a naturally log would make with the water having regard to the current of the season at the time and place all this was the second book only a matter of habit of course because the had come ashore for pleasure but a is never quite full and if the had been deceived by the likeness he would not have lived to over it my child i heard nothing said the shutting one eye the water was in my ears and also i was faint with hunger since the railway bridge was built my people at my village have ceased to love me and that is breaking my heart ah shame said the so noble a heart too but men are all alike to my mind nay there are very great differences indeed the answered gently some are as lean as boat poles others again are fat as young dogs never would i men they are of all fashions but the long years have shown me that one with another they are very good men women and children i have no fault to find with them and remember child he who the world is by the world flattery is worse than an empty tin can in the belly but that which we have just heard is wisdom said	39
the bringing down one foot the consider though their ingratitude to this excellent one began the tenderly nay nay not ingratitude the said they do not think for others that is all but i have noticed lying at my station below the ford that the stairs of the new bridge are cruelly hard to climb both for old people and young children the old indeed are not so worthy of consideration but i am grieved i am truly grieved on account of the fat children still i think in a little while when the of the bridge has worn away we shall see my people s bare brown legs bravely through the ford as before then the old will be honored again but surely i saw wreaths floating off the edge of the only this noon said the wreaths are a sign of reverence all india over an error an error it was the wife of the she loses her year by year and cannot tell a log from me the of the i saw the mistake when she threw the for i was lying at the very foot of the and had she taken another step i might have shown her some little differ the second book ence yet she meant well and we must consider the spirit of the offering what good are wreaths when one is on the rubbish heap said the hunting for but keeping one wary eye on his protector of the poor true but they have not yet begun to make the rubbish heap that shall carry me five times have i seen the river draw back from the village and make new land at the foot of the street five times have i seen the village on the banks and i shall see it built yet five times more i am no fish hunting i at to day and to morrow as the saying is but the true and constant of the ford it is not for nothing child that the village bears my name and he who watches long as the saying is shall at last have his reward have watched long very long nearly all my life and my reward has been and blows said the ho ho ho roared the in august was the born the rains fell in september now such a fearful flood as this says he i can t remember the there is one very unpleasant peculiarity about the at uncertain times he suffers from acute attacks of the or in his legs and though he is more virtuous to behold than any of the who are all immensely respectable he flies off into wild war dances half opening his wings and his bald head up and down while for reasons best known to himself he is very careful to time his worst attacks with his remarks at the last word of his song he came to attention again ten times than before the though he was full three seasons old but you cannot resent an insult from a person with a a yard long and the power of driving it like a the was a most notorious coward but the was worse we must live before we can learn said the and there is this to say little are very common child but such a as i am is not common for all that i am not proud since pride is destruction but take notice it is fate and against his fate no one who or walks or runs should say anything at all i am well contented with fate with good luck a keen eye and the custom of considering whether a the second book creek or a has an outlet to it ere you ascend much may be done once i heard that even the protector of the poor made a mistake said the true but there my fate helped me it was before i had come to my full growth before the last famine but three by the right and left of how full used the streams to be in those days yes i was young and and when the flood came who so pleased as i a little made me very happy then the village was deep in flood and i swam above the and went far inland up to the rice fields and they were deep in good mud i remember also a pair of glass they were and troubled me not a little that i found that evening yes glass and if my memory serves me well a shoe i should have shaken off both shoes but i was hungry i learned better later yes and so i fed and rested me but when i was ready to go to the river again the flood had fallen and i walked through the mud of the main street who but i came out all my people priests and women and children and i looked upon them with benevolence the mud is not a good place to fight in said a get and kill him for he is the of the the ford not so said the look he is driving the flood before him he is the of the village then they threw many flowers at me and by happy thought one led a goat across the road how good how very good is goat said the hairy too hairy and when found in the water more than likely to hide a cross shaped hook but that goat i accepted and went down to the in great honor later my fate sent me the who had desired to cut off my tail with an axe his boat upon an old which you would not remember we are not all here said the was it the made where the sank in the year of the great a long that lasted three floods	39
there were two said the an upper and a lower ay i forgot a channel divided them and later dried up again said the who himself on his memory on the lower my well s craft he was sleeping in the bows and half awake leaped over to his waist no it was no more than to his knees to push off his i the second book empty boat went on and touched again below the next reach as the river ran then i followed because i knew men would come out to drag it ashore and did they do so said the a little awe stricken this was hunting on a scale that impressed him there and lower down they did i went no further but that gave me three in one day all and except in the case of the last then i was careless never a cry to warn those on the bank ah noble sport but what cleverness and great judgment it requires said the not cleverness child but only thought a little thought in life is like salt upon rice as the say and i have thought deeply always the my cousin the fish has told me how hard it is for him to follow his fish and how one fish from the other and how he must know them all both together and apart i say that is wisdom but on the other hand my cousin the lives among his people my people do not swim in companies with their mouths out of the water as does nor do they constantly rise to the surface of the water and turn over on their sides like and little the nor do they gather in after flood like and all are very good eating said the his so my cousin says and makes a great to do over hunting them but they do not climb the banks to escape his sharp nose my people are otherwise their life is on the land in the houses among the cattle i must know what they do and what they are about to do and adding the tail to the trunk as the saying is i make up the whole elephant is there a green branch and an iron ring hanging over a doorway the old knows that a boy has been born in that house and must some day come down to the to play is a maiden to be married the old knows for he sees the men carry gifts back and forth and she too comes down to the to before her wedding and he is there has the river changed its channel and made new land where there was only sand before the knows now of what use is that knowledge said the the river has shifted even in my little life indian rivers are nearly always moving about in their beds and will shift sometimes as much as two or three miles in a season drown the second book ing the fields on one bank and spreading good on the other there is no knowledge so useful said the for new land means new quarrels the knows the knows as soon as the water has drained off he up the little that men think would not hide a dog and there he waits presently comes a farmer saying he will plant here and there in the new land that the river has given him he feels the good mud with his bare toes anon comes another saying he will put and and sugar cane in such and such places they meet as boats adrift meet and each rolls his eye at the other under the big blue the old sees and hears each calls the other brother and they go to mark out the boundaries of the new land the with them from point to point shuffling very low through the mud now they begin to quarrel now they say hot words now they pull now they lift up their clubs and at last one falls backward into the mud and the other runs away when he comes back the dispute is settled as the of the witnesses yet they are not grateful to the no they cry the murder and their families fight with sticks twenty a side my people are good people of the b t they do not give blows for sport and when the fight is done the old waits far down the river out of sight of the village behind the yonder then come they down my broad shouldered eight or nine together under the stars bearing the dead man upon a bed they are old men with gray and voices as deep as mine they light a little fire ah how well i know that fire and they drink tobacco and they nod their heads together forward in a ring or sideways toward the dead man upon the bank they say the english law will come with a rope for this matter and that such a man s family will be ashamed because such a man must be hanged in the great square of the jail then say the friends of the dead let him hang and the talk is all to do over again once twice twenty times in the long night then says one at last the fight was a fair fight let us take blood money a little more than is offered by the and we will say no more about it then do they over the blood money for the dead was a strong man leaving many sons yet before sunrise they put the fire to him a little the second book as the custom is and the dead man comes to me and he says no more about it my children the knows the knows and my are a good people	39
near to it as this bar you do not know the english as i do said the the there was a white face here when the bridge was built and he would take a boat in the evenings and with his feet on the bottom boards and whisper is he here is he there bring me my gun i could hear him before i could see him each sound that he made creaking and puffing and rattling his gun up and down the river as surely as i had picked up one of his workmen and thus saved great expense in wood for the burning so surely would he come down to the and shout in a loud voice that he would hunt me and rid the river of me the of me children i have under the bottom of his boat for hour after hour and heard him fire his gun at logs and when i was well sure he was wearied i have risen by his side and snapped my jaws in his face when the bridge was finished he went away all the english hunt in that fashion except when they are hunted who the white faces the excitedly no one now but i have hunted them in my time i remember a little of that hunting i was young then said the his significantly i was well established here my village was i the second book being for the third time as i remember when my cousin the brought me word of rich waters above at first i would not go for my cousin who is a fish does not always know the good from the bad but i heard my people talking in the evenings and what they said made me certain and what did they say the asked they said enough to make me the of leave water and take to my feet i went by night using the streams as they served me but it was the beginning of the hot weather and all streams were low i crossed dusty roads i went through tall grass i climbed hills in the moonlight even rocks did i climb children consider this well i crossed the tail of the before i could find the set of the little rivers that flow i was a month s journey from my own people and the river that i knew that was very what food on the way said the who kept his soul in his little stomach and was not a bit impressed by the s land travels that which i could find cousin said the slowly dragging each word now you do not call a man a cousin in india the unless you think you can establish some kind of blood relationship and as it is only in old that the ever a the knew for what reason he had been suddenly lifted into the s family circle if they had been alone he would not have cared but the s eyes with mirth at the ugly jest assuredly father i might have known said the a does not care to be called a father of and the of said as much and a great deal more which there is no use in repeating here the protector of the poor has claimed how can i remember the precise degree moreover we eat the same food he has said it was the s reply that made matters rather worse for what the hinted at was that the must have eaten his food on that land march fresh and fresh every day instead of keeping it by him till it was in a fit and proper condition as every self respecting and most wild beasts do when they can indeed one of the worst terms of contempt along the river bed is of fresh meat it is nearly as bad as calling a man a the second book that food was eaten thirty seasons ago said the quietly if we talk for thirty seasons more it will never come back tell us now what happened when the good waters were reached after thy most wonderful land journey if we listened to the howling of every the business of the town would stop as the saying is the must have been grateful for the interruption because he went on with a rush by the right and left of when i came there never did i see such waters were they better then than the big flood of last season said the better that flood was no more than comes every five years a handful of drowned strangers some chickens and a dead in muddy water with cross currents but the season i think of the river was low smooth and even and as the had warned me the dead english came down touching each other i got my in that season my and my depth from by and the broad waters by oh the that set under the walls of the fort at said the they came in there like to the and round and round they swung thus the he went off into his horrible dance again while the looked on he naturally could not remember the terrible year of the they were talking about the continued yes by one lay still in the and let twenty go by to pick one and above all the english were not with and nose rings and as my women are nowadays to delight in ornaments is to end with a rope for as the saying is all the of all the rivers grew fat then but it was my fate to be than them all the news was that the english were being hunted into the rivers and by the right and left of we believed it was true so far as i went south i believed it to be true	39
and i went down stream beyond and the that look over the river i know that place said the since those days is a lost city very few live there now thereafter i worked up stream very slowly and lazily and a little above there came down a of white faces alive they were as i remember women lying under a cloth spread over sticks and crying aloud there was the second book never a gun fired at us the of the in those days all the guns were busy elsewhere we could hear them day and night inland coming and going as the wind shifted i rose up full before the boat because i had never seen white faces alive though i knew them well otherwise a naked white child by the side of the boat and stooping over must needs try to trail his hands in the river it is a pretty thing to see how a child loves running water i had fed that day but there was yet a little space within me still it was for sport and not for food that i rose at the child s hands they were so clear a mark that i did not even look when i closed but they were so small that though my jaws rang true i am sure of that the child drew them up swiftly they must have passed between tooth and tooth those small white hands i should have caught him at the elbows but as i said it was only for sport and desire to see new things that i rose at all they cried out one after another in the boat and presently i rose again to watch them their boat was too heavy to push over they were only women but he who a woman will walk on in a pool as the saying is and by the right and left of that is truth the once a woman gave me some dried skin from a fish said the i had hoped to get her baby but horse food is better than the kick of a horse as the saying is what did thy woman do she fired at me with a short gun of a kind i have never seen before or since five times one after another the must have met with an old fashioned revolver and i stayed and gaping my head in the smoke never did i see such a thing five times as swiftly as i wave my tail thus the who had been growing more and more interested in the story had just time to leap back as the long tail swung by like a not before the fifth shot said the as though he had never dreamed of one of his listeners not before the fifth shot did i sink and i rose in time to hear a telling all those white women that i was most certainly dead one bullet had gone under a of mine i know not if it is there still for the reason i cannot turn my head look and see child it will show that my tale is true i said the shall an of old shoes a bone presume to doubt the word of the envy of the river may my tail be bit the second book ten off by blind if the shadow of such a thought has crossed my humble mind the protector of the poor has condescended to inform me his slave that once in his life he has been wounded by a woman that is sufficient and i will tell the tale to all my children asking for no proof over much civility is sometimes no better than over much for as the saying is one can choke a guest with i do not desire that any children of thine should know that the of took his only wound from a woman they will have much else to think of if they get their meat as miserably as does their father it is forgotten long ago it was never said there never was a white woman there was no boat nothing whatever happened at all the waved his brush to show how completely everything was wiped out of his memory and sat down with an air indeed very many things happened said the beaten in his second attempt that night to get the better of his friend neither bore malice however eat and be eaten was fair law along the river and the came in for his share of plunder when the had finished the a meal i left that boat and went up stream and when i had reached and the behind it there were no more dead english the river was empty for a while then came one or two dead in red coats not english but of one kind all and then five and six abreast and at last from to the north beyond it was as though whole villages had walked into the water they came out of little one after another as the logs come down in the rains when the river rose they rose also in companies from the they had rested upon and the falling flood dragged them with it across the fields and through the by the long hair all night too going north i heard the guns and by day the shod feet of men crossing and that noise which a heavy cart wheel makes on sand under water and every ripple brought more dead at last even i was afraid for i said if this thing happen to men how shall the of escape there were boats too that came up behind me without sails burning continually as the cotton boats sometimes burn but never sinking ah said the boats like those come to of the south they are tall the second book	39
and black they beat up the water behind them with a tail and they are thrice as big as my village my boats were low and white they beat up the water on either side of them and were no larger than the boats of one who speaks truth should be they made me very afraid and i left water and went back to this my river hiding by day and walking by night when i could not find little streams to help me i came to my village again but i did not hope to see any of my people there yet they were and and and going to and fro in their fields as quietly as their own cattle was there still good food in the river said the more than i had any desire for even i and i do not eat mud even i was tired and as i remember a little frightened of this constant coming down of the silent ones i heard my people say in my village that all the english were dead but those that came face down with the current were not english as my people saw then my people said that it was best to say nothing at all but to pay the tax and the land after a long time the river cleared and those that came down it had been clearly drowned by the the floods as i could well see and though it was not so easy then to get food i was heartily glad of it a little killing here and there is no bad thing but even the is sometimes satisfied as the saying is most truly said the i am become fat through merely hearing about so much good eating and afterward what if it be permitted to ask did the protector of the poor do i said to myself and by the right and left of i locked my jaws on that vow i said i would never go any more so i lived by the very close to my own people and i watched over them year after year and they loved me so much that they threw wreaths at my head whenever they saw it lift yes and my fate has been very kind to me and the river is good enough to respect my poor and presence only no one is all happy from his to his tail said the what does the of need more that little white child which i did not get said the with a deep sigh he was very small but i have not forgotten i am old now but before i die it is my desire to try one iso the second book new thing it is true they are a heavy footed noisy and foolish people and the sport would be small but i remember the old days above and if the child lives he will remember still it may be he goes up and down the bank of some river telling how he once passed his hands between the teeth of the of and lived to make a tale of it my fate has been very kind but that me sometimes in my dreams the thought of the little white child in the bows of that boat he yawned and closed his jaws and now i will rest and think keep silent my children and respect the aged he turned stiffly and to the top of the sand bar while the drew back with the to the shelter of a tree on the end nearest the railway bridge that was a pleasant and profitable life he grinned looking up at the bird who above him and not once mark you did he think fit to tell me where a morsel might have been left along the banks yet i have told him a hundred times of good things down stream how true is the saying all the world forgets the and the when the news has been told now he is going to sleep the how can a hunt with a said the coolly big thief and little thief it is easy to say who gets the the turned impatiently and was going to curl himself up under the tree trunk when suddenly he and looked up through the branches at the bridge almost above his head what now said the opening his wings uneasily wait till we see the wind blows from us to them but they are not looking for us those two men men is it my office me all india knows i am holy the being a first class is allowed to go where he pleases and so this one never i am not worth a blow from anything greater than an old shoe said the and listened again hark to that he went on that was no country leather but the shod foot of a white face listen again iron iron up there it is a gun friend those foolish english are coming to speak with the warn him then he was called protector the second book of the poor by some one not unlike a starving but a little time ago let my cousin protect his own hide he has told me again and again there is nothing to fear from the white faces they must be white faces not a of would dare to come after him see i said it was a gun now with good luck we shall feed before daylight he cannot hear well out of water and this time it is not a woman a shiny barrel glittered for a minute in the moonlight on the the was lying on the sand bar as still as his own shadow his fore feet spread out a little his head dropped between them like a a voice on the bridge whispered it	39
s an odd shot straight down almost but as safe as houses better try behind the neck what a brute the villagers will be wild if he s shot though he s the a of these parts don t care a rap another voice answered he took about fifteen of my best while the bridge was building and it s time he was put a stop to i ve been after him in a boat for weeks stand by with the as soon as i ve given him both barrels of this mind the kick then a double four bore s no joke the that s for him to decide here goes there was a roar like the sound of a small cannon the biggest sort of elephant rifle is not very different from some and a double streak of flame followed by the crack of a whose long bullet makes nothing of a s plates but the bullets did the work one of them struck just behind the s neck a hand s breadth to the left of the while the other burst a little lower down at the beginning of the tail in ninety nine cases out of a hundred a wounded can scramble to deep water and get away but the of was literally broken into three pieces he hardly moved his head before the life went out of him and he lay as flat as the thunder and lightning lightning and thunder said that miserable little beast has the thing that the covered carts over the bridge tumbled at last it is no more than a gun said the though his very tail feathers quivered nothing more than a gun he is certainly dead here come the white faces the two englishmen had hurried down from the bridge and across to the sand bar where they the second book stood admiring the length of the then a native with an axe cut off the big head and four men dragged it across the spit the last time that i had my hand in a s mouth said one of the englishmen stooping down he was the man who had built the bridge it was when i was about five years old coming down the river by boat to i was a baby as they call it poor mother was in the boat too and she often told me how she fired s old pistol at the beast s head well you ve certainly had your revenge on the chief of the even if the gun has made your nose hi you haul that head up the bank and we boil it for the skull the skin s too knocked about to keep come along to bed now this was worth sitting up all night for was n t it curiously enough the and the made the very same remark not three minutes after the men had left a ripple song a ripple came to land in the golden sunset burning against a maiden s hand by the ford returning dainty foot and gentle breast across be glad and rest maiden wait the ripple wait awhile for i am death where my lover calls i go shame it were to treat him coldly t was a fish that so turning over boldly dainty foot and tender heart wait the loaded cart wait ah wait the ripple maiden wait for i am death the second book when my lover calls i haste dame disdain was never wedded ripple ripple round her waist clear the current foolish heart and faithful hand little feet that touched no land far away the ripple sped ripple ripple running red i the king s these are the four that are never content that have never been filled since the began s mouth and the of the and the hands of the and the eyes of man saying the king s a a the big rock had changed his skin for perhaps the two time since his birth and who never forgot that he owed his life to for a night s work at cold which you may perhaps remember went to congratulate him always makes a snake moody and depressed till the new skin begins to shine and look beautiful never made fun of any more but accepted him as the other people for the master of the and brought him all the news that a of his i o the second book size would naturally hear what did not know about the middle as they call it the life that runs close to the earth or under it the and the tree life might have been written upon the smallest of his scales that afternoon was sitting in the circle of s great the and broken old skin that lay all and twisted among the rocks just as had left it had very courteously packed himself under s broad bare shoulders so that the boy was really resting in a living arm chair even to the scales of the eyes it is perfect said under his breath playing with the old skin strange to see the covering of one s own head at one s own feet aye but i lack feet said and since this is the custom of all my people i do not find it strange does thy skin never feel old and harsh then go i and wash but it is true in the great i have wished i could my skin without pain and run i wash and also i take off my skin how looks the new coat ran his hand down the check the king s i i of the immense back the is harder backed but not so gay he said the my name bearer is more gay but not so hard it is	39
very beautiful to see like the in the mouth of a lily it needs water a new skin never comes to full color before the first bath let us go i will carry thee said and he stooped down laughing to lift the middle section of s great body just where the barrel was a man might just as well have tried to heave up a two foot water main and lay still puffing with quiet amusement then the regular evening game began the boy in the flush of his great strength and the in his new skin standing up one against the other for a match a trial of eye and strength of course could have crushed a dozen if he had let himself go but he played carefully and never one tenth of his power ever since was strong enough to endure a little rough handling had taught him this game and it his limbs as nothing else could sometimes would stand almost to his throat in s shifting striving to get one arm free and catch i the second book him by the throat then would give way and with both quick moving feet would try to the purchase of that huge tail as it flung backward feeling for a rock or a stump they would rock to and fro head to head each waiting for his chance till the beautiful group melted in a whirl of black and yellow and struggling legs and arms to rise up again and again now now now said making with his head that even s quick hand could not turn aside look i touch thee here little brother here and here are thy hands here again the game always ended in one way with a straight driving blow of the head that knocked the boy over and over could never learn the guard for that lightning and as said there was not the least use in trying good hunting at last and as usual was shot away half a dozen yards gasping and laughing he rose with his fingers full of grass and followed to the wise snake s pet bathing place a deep pool surrounded with rocks and made interesting by sunken tree the boy slipped in fashion without a sound and across rose too without a sound and turned on the s his back his arms behind his head watching the moon rising above the rocks and breaking up her reflection in the water with his toes s diamond shaped head cut the pool like a and came out to rest on s shoulder they lay still in the cool water it is very good said at last now in the man pack at this hour as i remember they laid them down upon hard pieces of wood in the inside of a mud trap and having carefully shut out all the clean winds drew foul cloth over their heavy heads and made evil songs through their noses it is better in the a hurrying slipped down over a rock and drank gave them good hunting and went away said as though he had suddenly remembered something so the gives thee all that thou hast ever desired little brother not all said laughing else there would be a new and strong to kill once a moon now i could kill with my own hands asking no help of and also i have wished the sun to shine in the middle of the rains and the rains to cover the sun in the deep i the second book of summer and also i have never gone empty but i wished that i had killed a goat and also i have never killed a goat but i wished it had been buck nor buck but i wished it had been but thus do we feel all of us thou hast no other desire the big snake demanded what more can i wish i have the and the favor of the is there more anywhere between sunrise and sunset now the said began what he that went away just now said nothing he was hunting it was another hast thou many dealings with the poison people i give them their own path they carry death in the fore tooth and that is not good for they are so small but what hood is this thou hast spoken with rolled slowly in the water like a steamer in a beam sea three or four since said he i hunted in cold which place thou hast not forgotten and the thing i hunted fled shrieking past the and to that house whose side i once broke for thy sake and ran into the ground but the people of cold do not live in the king s knew that was talking of the monkey people this thing was not living but seeking to live replied with a quiver of his tongue he ran into a that led very far i followed and having killed i slept when i i went forward under the earth even so coming at last upon a white hood a white who spoke of things beyond my knowledge and showed me many things i had never before seen new game was it good hunting turned quickly on his side it was no game and would have broken all my teeth but the white hood said that a man he spoke as one that knew the breed that a man would give the breath under his ribs for only the sight of those things we will look said i now remember that i was once a man slowly slowly it was haste killed the yellow snake that ate the sun we two spoke together under the earth and i spoke of thee thee as a man said the white hood and he is indeed as old as the it is long	39
since i have seen a man let him come and he i the second book shall see all these things for the least of which very many men would die that must be new game and yet the poison people do not tell us when game is they are an folk it is not game it is it is i cannot say what it is we will go there i have never seen a white hood and i wish to see the other things did he kill them they are all dead things he says he is the keeper of them all ah as a wolf stands above meat he has taken to his own let us go swam to bank rolled on the grass to dry himself and the two set off for cold the deserted city of which you may have heard was not the least afraid of the monkey people in those days but the monkey people had the horror of their tribes however were in the and so cold stood empty and silent in the moonlight led up to the ruins of the queen s that stood on the terrace slipped over the rubbish and down the half choked staircase that went from the of the gave the snake call we the s be of one blood ye and i and followed on his hands and knees they crawled a long distance down a sloping passage that turned and twisted several times and at last came to where the root of some great tree growing thirty feet overhead had forced out a solid stone in the wall they crept through the gap and found themselves in a large vault whose roof had been also broken away by tree roots so that a few streaks of light dropped down into the darkness a safe said rising to his firm feet but over far to visit daily and now what do we see am i nothing said a voice in the middle of the vault and saw something white move till little by little there stood up the he had ever set eyes on a creature nearly eight feet long and by being in darkness to an old ivory white even the of his spread hood had faded to faint yellow his eyes were as red as and altogether he was most wonderful good hunting said who carried his manners with his knife and that never left him what of my city said the white i the second book without answering the greeting what of the great the walled city the city of a hundred and twenty thousand horses and cattle past counting the city of the king of twenty kings i grow deaf here and it is long since i heard their war the is above our heads said i know only and his sons among has slain all the horses in one village and what is a king i told thee said softly to the i told thee four ago that thy city was not the city the great city of the forest whose gates are guarded by the king s towers can never pass they it before my father s father came from the and it shall endure when my son s sons are as white as i son of son of son of made it in the days of whose cattle are ye it is a lost trail said turning to i know not his talk nor i he is very old father of there is only the here as it has been since the beginning then who is he said the white sit the king s ting down before me knowing not the name of the king talking our talk through a man s lips who is he with the knife and the snake s tongue they call me was the answer i am of the the wolves are my people and here is my brother father of who art thou i am the of the king s treasure the stone above me in the days when my skin was dark that i might teach death to those who came to steal then they let down the treasure through the stone and i heard the song of the my masters said to himself i have dealt with one already in the man pack and i know what i know evil comes here in a little five times since i came here has the stone been lifted but always to let down more and never to take away there are no riches like these riches the treasures of a hundred kings but it is long and long since the stone was last moved and i think that my city has forgotten there is no city look up yonder are roots of the great trees tearing the stones apart trees and men do not grow together insisted i the second book twice and thrice have men found their way here the white answered savagely but they never spoke till i came upon them groping in the dark and then they cried only a little time but ye come with lies man and snake both and would have me believe the city is not and that my ends little do men change in the years but change never till the stone is lifted and the come down singing the songs that i know and feed me with warm milk and take me to the light again i i and no other am the of the king s treasure the city is dead ye say and here are the roots of the trees stoop down then and take what ye will earth has no treasure like to these man with the snake s tongue if thou go alive by the way that thou hast entered at the lesser kings will be thy	39
servants again the trail is lost said coolly can any have so deep and bitten this great white hood he is surely mad father of i see nothing here to take away by the gods of the sun and moon it is the madness of death upon the boy the before thine eyes close i will allow thee this favor look thou and see what man has never seen before the king s they do not well in the who speak to of said the boy between his teeth but the dark changes all as i know i will look if that please thee he stared with up eyes round the vault and then lifted up from the floor a handful of something that glittered said he this is like the stuff they play with in the man pack only this is yellow and the other was brown he let the gold pieces fall and moved forward the floor of the vault was buried some five or six feet deep in gold and silver that had burst from the it had been originally stored in and in the long years the metal had packed and settled as sand at low tide on it and in it and rising through it as lift through the sand were elephant of silver studded with plates of gold and adorned with and there were and for carrying queens framed and with silver and with handled poles and curtain rings there were golden hung with pierced that quivered on the branches there were studded images five feet high of forgotten gods silver with eyes there were coats the second book of mail gold on steel and fringed with and blackened seed pearls there were and with pigeon s blood there were of of and hide and with red gold and set with at the edge there were of diamond swords and hunting knives there were golden and and of a shape that never see the light of day there were cups and there were and pots for perfume and eye powder all in gold there were nose rings head bands finger rings and past any counting there were seven fingers broad of square cut diamonds and and wooden boxes with iron from which the wood had fallen away in powder showing the pile of star cat diamonds and within the white was right no mere money would begin to pay the value of this treasure the of centuries of war plunder trade and the alone were leaving out of count all the precious stones and the dead weight of the gold and silver alone might the king s be two or three hundred tons every native ruler in india to day however poor has a to which he is always adding and though once in a long while some enlightened prince may send off forty or fifty loads of silver to be exchanged for government the bulk of them keep their treasure and the knowledge of it very closely to themselves but naturally did not understand what these things meant the knives interested him a little but they did not balance so well as his own and so he dropped them at last he found something really fascinating laid on the front of a half buried in the it was a three foot or elephant something like a small boat hook the top was one round shining and twelve inches of the handle below it were studded with rough close together giving a most satisfactory grip below the second le book them was a rim of with a flower pattern running round it only the leaves were and the blossoms were sunk in the cool green stone the rest of the handle was a shaft of pure ivory while the point the and hook was gold steel with pictures of elephant catching and the pictures attracted who saw that they had something to do with his friend the silent the white had been following him closely is this not worth dying to behold he said have i not done thee a great favor i do not understand said the things are hard and cold and by no means good to eat but this he lifted the i desire to take away that i may see it in the sun thou they are all thine wilt thou give it to me and i will bring thee to eat the white fairly shook with evil delight assuredly i will give it he said all that is here i will give thee till thou away but i go now this place is dark and cold and i wish to take the thorn pointed thing to the look by thy foot what is that there picked up something white and smooth the king s it is the bone of a man s head he said quietly and here are two more they came to take the treasure away many years ago i spoke to them in the dark and they lay still but what do i need of this that is called treasure if thou wilt give me the to take away it is good hunting if not it is good hunting none the less i do not fight with the poison people and i was also taught the master word of thy tribe there is but one master word here it is mine flung himself forward with blazing eyes who bade me bring the man he i surely the old it is long since i have seen man and this man speaks our tongue but there was no talk of killing how can i go to the and say that i have led him to his death said i talk not of killing till the time and as to thy going or not going there is the hole in the wall peace now thou fat monkey i have but to touch	39
thy neck and the will know thee no longer never man came here that went away with the breath under his ribs i the second book am the of the treasure of the king s city but thou white worm of the dark i tell thee there is neither king nor city the is all about us cried there is still the treasure but this can be done wait a while of the rocks and see the boy run there is room for great sport here life is good run to and fro a while and make sport boy put his hand on s head quietly the white thing has dealt with men of the man pack until now he does not know me he whispered he has asked for this hunting let him have it had been standing with the held point down he flung it from him quickly and it dropped just behind the great snake s hood him to the floor in a flash s weight was upon the body it from hood to tail the red eyes burned and the six spare inches of the head struck furiously right and left kill said as s hand went to his knife no he said as he drew the blade i will never kill again save for food but look you he caught the snake behind the hood the king s forced the mouth open with the blade of the knife and showed the terrible poison of the upper jaw lying black and withered in the the white had his poison as a snake will it is dried up said and away he picked up the setting the white free the kings treasure needs a new he said gravely thou hast not done well run to and fro and make sport i am ashamed kill me the white there has been too much talk of killing we will go now i take the thorn pointed thing because i have fought and thee see then that the thing does not kill thee at last it is death remember it is death there is enough in that thing to kill the men of all my city not long wilt thou hold it man nor he who takes it from thee they will kill and kill and kill for its sake my strength is dried up but the will do my work it is death it is death it is death crawled out through the hole into the literally a out tree stump the second book passage again and the last that he saw was the white striking furiously with his harmless at the stolid golden faces of the gods that lay on the floor and hissing it is death they were glad to get to the light of day once more and when they were back in their own and made the glitter in the morning light he was almost as pleased as though he had found a bunch of new flowers to stick in his hair this is brighter than s eyes he said as he the i will show it to him but what did the mean when he talked of death i cannot say i am sorrowful to my tail s tail that he felt not thy knife there is always evil at cold above ground or below but now i am hungry dost thou hunt with me this dawn said no must see this thing good hunting danced off flourishing the great and stopping from time to time to admire it till he came to that part of the chiefly used and found him drinking after a heavy kill told him all his adventures from beginning to end and at the between when the king s came to the white s last words the then the white hood spoke the thing which is asked quickly i was born in the king s at and it is in my stomach that i know some little of man very many men would kill thrice in a night for the sake of that one big red stone alone but the stone makes it heavy to the hand my little bright knife is better and see the red stone is not good to eat then why would they kill go thou and sleep thou hast lived among men and i remember men kill because they are not hunting for idleness and pleasure wake again for what use was this thing made half opened his eyes he was very sleepy with a malicious twinkle it was made by men to thrust into the head of the sons of so that the blood should pour out i have seen the like in the street of before our that thing has tasted the blood of many such as but why do they thrust into the heads of i o the second book to teach them man s law having neither claws nor teeth men make these things and worse always more blood when i come near even to the things the man pack have made said he was getting a little tired of the weight of the if i had known this i would not have taken it first it was s blood on the and now it is s i will use it no more look the flew sparkling and buried itself point down thirty yards away between the trees so my hands are clean of death said rubbing his palms on the fresh moist earth the said death would follow me he is old and white and mad white or black or death or life am going to sleep little brother i cannot hunt all night and howl all day as do some folk went off to a hunting that he knew about two miles off made an easy way for himself up a convenient tree knotted three or four together and in less	39
time than it takes to tell was swinging in a fifty feet above ground though he had no positive objection to strong daylight followed the custom of his friends and used it as the king s i i little as he could when he among the very loud that live in the trees it was twilight once more and he had been dreaming of the beautiful pebbles he had thrown away at least i will look at the thing again he said and slid down a to the earth but was before him could hear him in the half light where is the thorn pointed thing cried a man has taken it here is the trail now we shall see whether the spoke truth if the pointed thing is death that man will die let us follow kill first said an empty stomach makes a careless eye men go very slowly and the is wet enough to hold the mark they killed as soon as they could but it was nearly three hours before they finished their meat and drink and down to the trail the people know that nothing makes up for being hurried over your meals think you the pointed thing will turn in the man s hand and kill him asked the said it was death the second book we shall see when we find said trotting with his head low it is single foot he meant that there was only one man and the weight of the thing has pressed his heel far into the ground hai this is as clear as summer lightning answered and they fell into the quick trail trot in and out through the of the moonlight following the marks of those two bare feet now he runs swiftly said the toes are spread apart they went on over some wet ground now why does he turn aside here wait said and flung himself forward with one superb bound as far as ever he could the first thing to do when a trail ceases to explain itself is to cast forward without leaving your own foot marks on the ground turned as he landed and faced crying here comes another trail to meet him it is a smaller foot this second trail and the toes turn inward then ran up and looked it is the foot of a hunter he said look here he dragged his bow on the grass that is why the first trail turned aside so quickly big foot hid from little foot the king s that is true said now lest by crossing each other s tracks we foul the signs let each take one trail i am big foot little brother and thou art little foot the leaped back to the original trail leaving stooping above the curious narrow track of the wild little man of the woods now said moving step by step along the chain of i big foot turn aside here now i hide me behind a rock and stand still not daring to shift my feet cry thy trail little brother now i little foot come to the rock said running up his trail now i sit down under the rock leaning upon my right hand and resting my bow between my toes i wait long for the mark of my feet is deep here i also said hidden behind the rock i wait resting the end of the thing upon a stone it slips for here is a scratch upon the stone cry thy trail little brother one two twigs and a big branch are broken here said in an now how shall i cry that ah it is plain now i little foot go away making noises and so that big foot may hear me he moved away i the second book from the rock pace by pace among the trees his voice rising in the distance as he approached a little i go far away to where the noise of falling water covers my noise and here i wait cry thy trail big foot the had been casting in every direction to see how big foot s trail led away from behind the rock then he gave tongue i come from behind the rock upon my knees dragging the thorn pointed thing seeing no one i run i big foot run swiftly the trail is clear let each follow his own i run swept on along the clearly marked trail and followed the steps of the for some time there was silence in the where art thou little foot cried s voice answered him not fifty yards to the right um said the with a deep cough the two run side by side drawing nearer they on another half mile always keeping about the same distance till whose head was not so close to the ground as s cried they have met good hunting look here stood little foot with his knee on a rock and yonder is big foot indeed the king s not ten yards in front of them stretched across a pile of broken rocks lay the body of a of the district a long small arrow through his back and breast was the so old and so mad little brother said gently here is one death at least follow on but where is the of elephant s blood the red eyed thorn little foot has it perhaps it is again now the single trail of a light man who had been running quickly and bearing a burden on his left shoulder held on round a long low spur of dried grass where each seemed to the sharp eyes of the marked in hot iron neither spoke till the trail ran up to the ashes of a camp fire hidden in a again said checking as though	39
he had been turned into stone the body of a little lay with its feet in the ashes and looked at that was done with a said the boy after one glance i have used such a thing among the when i served in the man pack the father of i am sorrowful i the second book that i made a jest of him knew the breed well as i might have known said i not that men kill for idleness indeed they killed for the sake of the red and blue stones answered remember i was in the king s at one two three four tracks said stooping over the ashes four tracks of men with shod feet they do not go so quickly as now what evil had the little done to them see they talked together all five standing up before they killed him let us go back my stomach is heavy in me and yet it up and down like an s nest at the end of a branch it is not good hunting to leave game follow said the those eight shod feet have not gone far no more was said for fully an hour as they worked up the broad trail of the four men with shod feet it was clear hot daylight now and said i smell smoke men are always more ready to eat than to run answered trotting in and out between the low bushes of the new they were exploring a little to his left made an indescribable noise in his throat the king s here is one that has done with feeding said he a tumbled bundle of gay colored clothes lay under a bush and round it was some flour that was done by the again said see that white dust is what men eat they have taken the kill from this one he carried their food and given him for a kill to the it is the third said i will go with new big to the father of and feed him fat said to himself the of blood is death himself but still i do not understand follow said they had not gone half a mile further when they heard ko the crow singing the death song in the top of a under whose shade three men were lying a half dead fire smoked in the of the circle under an iron plate which held a blackened and burned cake of bread close to the fire and blazing in the sunshine lay the and the thing works quickly all ends here said how did these die there is no mark on any a gets to learn by experience as much as many doctors know of poisonous l the second book plants and the smoke that came up from the fire broke off a morsel of the blackened bread tasted it and it out again apple of death he the first must have made it ready in the food for these who killed him having first killed the good hunting indeed the follow close said apple of death is what the call thorn apple or the poison in all india what now said the must thou and i kill each other for yonder red eyed can it speak said in a whisper did i do it a wrong when i threw it away between us two it can do no wrong for we do not desire what men desire if it be left here it will assuredly continue to kill men one after another as fast as nuts fall in a high wind i have no love to men but even i would not have them die six in a night what matter they are only men they killed one another and were well pleased said that first little hunted well they are none the less and a will the king s drown himself to bite the moon s light on the water the fault was mine said who spoke as though he knew all about everything i will never again bring into the strange things not though they be as beautiful as flowers this he handled the goes back to the father of but first we must sleep and we cannot sleep near these also we must bury him lest he run away and kill another six dig me a hole under that tree but little brother said moving off to the spot i tell thee it is no fault of the blood the trouble is with men all one said dig the hole deep when we wake i will take him up and carry him back two nights later as the white sat mourning in the darkness of the vault ashamed and robbed and alone the whirled through the hole in the wall and on the floor of golden father of said he was careful to keep the other side of the wall get thee a young and ripe one of thine own people to help the second book thee guard the king s treasure so that no man may come away alive any more ah ha it returns then i said the thing was death how comes it that thou art still alive the old lovingly round the by the bull that bought me i do not know that thing has killed six times in a night let him go out no more the song of the little hunter re the ere the monkey people cry ere the down a sheer through the very softly a shadow and a sigh he is fear o little hunter he is fear very softly down the runs a waiting watching shade and the whisper and far and near and the sweat is on thy brow for he passes even now he is fear o little hunter he is fear ere the moon has climbed the mountain ere	39
the rocks are with light when the downward dipping are and comes a breathing hard behind thee through the night it is fear o little hunter it is fear on thy knees and draw the bow bid the arrow go in the empty mocking thicket plunge the spear x the second book but thy hands are and weak and the blood has left thy cheek it is fear o little hunter it is fear when the heat cloud the tempest when the pine trees fall when the blinding rain lash and through the war of the thunder rings a voice more loud than all it is fear o little hunter it is fear now the are and deep now the leap now the lightning shows each leaf clear but thy throat is shut and dried and thy heart against thy side fear o little hunter this is fear the people of the eastern ice they are melting like the snow they beg for coffee and sugar they go the white men go the people of the western ice they learn to steal and fight they sell their to the trading post they sell their souls to the white the people of the southern ice they trade with the s crew their women have many ribbons but their tents are torn and few but the people of the elder ice beyond the white man s ken their are made of the horn and they are the last of the men i translation e has opened his eyes look put him in the skin again he will be a strong dog on the fourth month we will name him for whom said s eye rolled round the skin lined snow house till it fell on fourteen sitting on the sleeping bench making a button out of ivory name him for me said with a grin i shall need him one day grinned back till his eyes were almost the second book buried in the fat of his flat cheeks and nodded to while the s fierce mother to see her baby far out of reach in the little hung above the warmth of the lamp went on with his carving and threw a rolled bundle of leather dog into a tiny little room that opened from one side of the house slipped off his heavy hunting suit put it into a net that hung above another lamp and dropped down on the sleeping bench to at a piece of frozen seal meat till his wife should bring the regular dinner of boiled meat and blood soup he had been out since early dawn at the seal holes eight miles away and had come home with three big seal down the long low snow passage or that led to the inner door of the house you could hear and as the dogs of his team released from the day s work for warm places when the grew too loud lazily rolled off the sleeping bench and picked up a whip with an eighteen inch handle of and twenty five feet of heavy he into the passage where it sounded as though all the dogs were eating him alive but that was no more than their regular grace before meals when he crawled out at the far end half a dozen heads followed him with their eyes as he went to a sort of gallows of whale from which the dogs meat was hung split off the frozen stuff in big with a broad headed spear and stood his whip in one hand and the meat in the other each beast was called by name the first and woe any dog that moved out of his turn for the lash would shoot out like lightning and away an inch or so of hair and hide each beast growled snapped choked once over his portion and hurried back to the protection of the passage while the boy stood upon the snow under the blazing northern lights and dealt out justice the last to be served was the big black leader of the team who kept order when the dogs were and to him gave a double allowance of meat as well as an extra crack of the whip ah said up the lash i have a little one over the lamp that will make a great many get in he crawled back over the huddled dogs the dry snow from his with the the second book that kept by the door tapped the skin lined roof of the house to shake off any that might have fallen from the dome of snow above and curled up on the bench the dogs in the passage and in their sleep the boy baby in s deep fur hood kicked and choked and and the mother of the newly named lay at s side her eyes fixed on the bundle of warm and safe above the broad yellow flame of the lamp and all this happened far away to the north beyond beyond s strait where the great tides heave the ice about north of north even of the narrow fury and straits on the north shore of land where s island stands above the ice of sound like a bowl wrong side up north of sound there is little we know anything about except north and land but even there live a few scattered people next door as it were to the very pole was an what you call an and his tribe some thirty persons all told belonged to the the country lying at the back of something in the maps that desolate coast is written navy board but the name is best because the country lies at the very back of everything in the world for nine months of the year there is only ice snow and gale after gale	39
with a cold that no one can realize who has never seen the even at for six months of those nine it is dark and that is what makes it so horrible in the three months of the summer it only every other day and every night and then the snow begins to weep off on the slopes and a few ground put out their a tiny or so makes believe to blossom of fine gravel and rounded stones run down to the open sea and polished and rocks lift up above the snow but all that is gone in a few weeks and the wild winter locks down again on the land while at sea the ice tears up and down the and and and and and till it all together ten feet thick from the land outward to deep water in the winter would follow the seal to the edge of this land ice and spear them as they came up to breathe at their blow holes the seal must have open water to live and catch the second book fish in and in the deep of winter the ice would sometimes run eighty miles without a break from the nearest shore in the spring he and his people retreated from the to the rocky where they put up tents of skins and the sea birds or the young seal on the later they would go south into land after the and to get their year s store of salmon from the hundreds of streams and lakes of the interior coming back north in september or october for the ox hunting and the regular winter this was done with dog twenty and thirty miles a day or sometimes down the coast in big skin woman boats when the dogs and the babies lay among the feet of the and the women sang songs as they glided from cape to cape over the cold waters all the luxuries that the knew came from the south for rod iron for tips steel knives tin that cooked food much better than the old affairs flint and steel and even matches as well as colored ribbons for the women s hair little cheap and red cloth for the of dress the rich twisted horn and ox teeth these are just as as pearls to the southern and they in turn with the and the missionary posts of and sounds and so the chain went on till a kettle picked up by a ship s cook in the might end its days over a somewhere on the cool side of the circle being a good hunter was rich in iron snow knives bird and all the other things that make life easy up there in the great cold and he was the head of this tribe or as they say the man who knows all about it by practice this did not give him any authority except now and then he could advise his friends to change their hunting grounds but used it to a little in the lazy fat fashion over the other boys when they came out at night to play ball in the moonlight or to sing the child s song to the but at fourteen an feels himself a man and was tired of making for wild fowl and and most tired of all of helping the women to seal and that them as nothing else can the long day through while the men were out hunting he wanted to go into the the singing house the second book when the hunters gathered there for their mysteries and the the frightened them into the most delightful fits after the lamps were put out and you could hear the spirit of the stamping on the roof and when a spear was thrust out into the open black night it came back covered with hot blood he wanted to throw his big boots into the net with the tired air of a head of a family and to with the hunters when they dropped in of an evening and played a sort of home made with a tin pot and a nail there were hundreds of things that he wanted to do but the grown men laughed at him and said wait till you have been in the hunting is not all catching now that his father had named a for him things looked brighter an does not waste a good dog on his son till the boy knows something of dog driving and was more than sure that he knew more than everything if the had not had an iron constitution he would have died from over and made him a tiny harness with a trace to it and hauled him all over the house floor shouting go to the right go to the left stop the did not like it at all but being for in this way was pure happiness beside being put to the for the first time he just sat down on the snow and played with the seal hide trace that ran from his harness to the the big in the bows of the then the team started and the found the heavy ten foot running up his back and dragging him along the snow while laughed till the tears ran down his face there followed days and days of the cruel whip that like the wind over ice and his companions all bit him because he did not know his work and the harness him and he was not allowed to sleep with any more but had to take the place in the passage it was a sad time for the the boy learned too as fast as the dog though a dog is a thing to manage each beast is the nearest to the driver by his own separate trace which runs under his left fore leg to the main where	39
it is fastened by a sort of button and which can be slipped by a turn of the wrist thus one dog at a time this is very necessary because young dogs often get the the second book trace between their hind legs where it cuts to the bone and they one and all will go visiting their friends as they run jumping in and out among the traces then they fight and the result is more mixed than a wet fishing line next morning a great deal of trouble can be avoided by scientific use of the whip every boy himself as being a master of the long lash but it is easy to at a mark on the ground and difficult to lean forward and catch a dog just behind the shoulders when the is going at full speed if you call one dog s name for visiting and accidentally lash another the two will fight it out at once and stop all the others again if you travel with a companion and begin to talk or by yourself and sing the dogs will halt turn round and sit down to hear what you have to say was run away from once or twice through forgetting to block the when he stopped and he broke many and ruined a few before he could be trusted with a full team of eight and the light then he felt himself a person of consequence and on smooth black ice with a bold heart and a quick elbow he smoked along over the as fast as a pack in full cry he would go ten miles to the seal holes and when he was on the hunting grounds he would a trace loose from the and free the big black leader who was the dog in the team as soon as the dog had scented a breathing hole would reverse the driving a couple of off that stuck up like handles from the back rest deep into the snow so that the team could not get away then he would crawl forward inch by inch and wait till the seal came up to breathe then he would down swiftly with his spear and running line and presently would haul his seal up to the lip of the ice while the black leader came up and helped to pull the across the ice to the that was the time when the dogs and with excitement and laid the long lash like a red hot bar across all their faces till the stiff going home was the heavy work the loaded had to be among the rough ice and the dogs sat down and looked at the seal instead of pulling at last they would strike the well worn road to the village and along the ringing ice heads down and tails up while struck up the na na ne the song of the returning hunter and voices hailed o the second book him from house to house under all that dim sky when the dog came to his full growth he enjoyed himself too he fought his way up the team steadily fight after fight till one fine evening over their food he the big black leader the boy saw fair play and made second dog of him as they say so he was promoted to the long of the leading dog running five feet in advance of all the others it was his duty to stop all fighting in harness or out of it and he wore a collar of copper wire very thick and heavy on special occasions he was fed with cooked food inside the house and sometimes was allowed to sleep on the bench with he was a good seal dog and would keep a ox at bay by running round him and snapping at his heels he would even and this for a dog is the last proof of bravery he would even stand up to the gaunt wolf whom all dogs of the north as a rule fear beyond anything that walks the snow he and his master they did not count the team of ordinary dogs as company hunted together day after day and night after night fur wrapped boy and savage narrow eyed white yellow brute all an has to do is to get food and skins for himself and his family the women folk make the skins into clothing and occasionally help in small game but the bulk of the food and they eat must be found by the men if the supply fails there is no one up there to buy or beg or borrow from the people must die an does not think of these chances till he is forced to and the boy baby who kicked about in s fur hood and pieces of all day were as happy together as any family in the world they came of a very gentle race an seldom loses his temper and almost never strikes a child who did not know exactly what telling a real lie meant still less how to steal they were content to spear their living out of the heart of the bitter hopeless cold to smile smiles and tell queer ghost and fairy tales of evenings and eat till they could eat no more and sing the endless woman s song ah ah through the long days as they mended their clothes and their hunting gear but one terrible winter everything betrayed them the returned from the o the second book yearly salmon fishing and made their houses on the early ice to the north of by lot s island ready to go after the seal as soon as the sea but it was an early and savage autumn all through september there were continuous that broke up the smooth seal ice when it was only four or five feet	39
thick and forced it inland and piled a great barrier some twenty miles broad of and ragged and ice over which it was impossible to draw the dog the edge of the off which the seal were used to fish in winter lay perhaps twenty miles beyond this barrier and out of reach of the even so they might have managed to scrape through the winter on their stock of frozen salmon and stored and what the traps gave them but in december one of their hunters came across a a skin tent of three women and a girl nearly dead whose men had come down from the far north and been crushed in their little skin hunting boats while they were out after the long of course could only the women among the huts of the winter village for no dare refuse a meal to a stranger he never knows when his own turn may come to beg took the girl who was about fourteen into her own house as a sort of servant from the cut of her hood and the long diamond pattern of her white they supposed she came from land she had never seen tin cooking pots or wooden shod before but the boy and the dog were rather fond of her then all the went south and even the that growling blunt headed little thief of the snow did not take the trouble to follow the line of empty traps that set the tribe lost a couple of their best hunters who were badly crippled in a fight with a ox and this threw more work on the others went out day after day with a light hunting and six or seven of the strongest dogs looking till his eyes ached for some patch of clear ice where a seal might perhaps have scratched a breathing hole the dog ranged far and wide and in the dead stillness of the ice fields the boy could hear his half choked of excitement above a seal hole three miles away as plainly as though he were at his elbow when the dog found a hole the boy would build himself a little low snow wall to keep off the worst of the bitter wind and there he would wait ten twelve twenty hours for the seal to come up io the second book to breathe his eyes to the tiny mark he had made above the hole to guide the downward thrust of his a little mat under his feet and his legs tied together in the the that the old hunters had talked about this helps to keep a man s legs from as he waits and waits and waits for the quick seal to rise though there is no excitement in it you can easily believe that the sitting still in the with the perhaps forty degrees below is the hardest work an knows when a seal was caught the dog would bound forward his trace trailing behind him and help to pull the body to the where the tired and hungry dogs lay sullenly under the lee of the broken ice a seal did not go very far for each mouth in the little village had a right to be filled and neither bone hide nor was wasted the dogs meat was taken for human use and fed the team with pieces of old summer skin tents out from under the sleeping bench and they howled and howled again and to howl one could tell by the lamps in the huts that famine was near in good seasons when was plentiful the light in the boat shaped lamps would be two feet high cheerful and yellow now it was a bare six inches carefully pricked down the moss when an flame brightened for a moment and the eyes of all the family followed her hand the horror of famine up there in the great cold is not so much dying as dying in the dark all the dread the dark that presses on them without a break for six months in each year and when the lamps are low in the houses the minds of people begin to be shaken and confused but worse was to come the dogs snapped and growled in the passages glaring at the cold stars and into the bitter wind night after night when they stopped howling the silence fell down again as solid and as heavy as a against a door and men could hear the beating of their blood in the thin passages of the ear and the of their own hearts that sounded as loud as the noise of drums beaten across the snow one night the dog who had been unusually sullen in harness leaped up and pushed his head against s knee patted him but the dog still pushed blindly forward then the second book and the heavy wolf like head and stared into the eyes the dog and shivered between s knees the hair rose about his neck and he growled as though a stranger were at the door then he and rolled on the ground and bit at s boot like a what is it said for he was beginning to be afraid the sickness answered it is the dog sickness the dog lifted his nose and howled and howled again i have not seen this before what will he do said shrugged one shoulder a little and crossed the hut for his short the big dog looked at him howled again and away down the passage while the other dogs drew aside right and left to give him ample room when he was out on the snow he furiously as though on the trail of a ox and barking and leaping and passed out of sight this was not but simple plain madness the cold and the hunger and above all the dark had turned his head and when	39
the terrible dog sickness once shows itself in a team it like next hunting day another dog and was killed then and there by as he bit and struggled among the traces then the black second dog who had been the leader in the old days suddenly gave tongue on an imaginary and when they slipped him from the he flew at the throat of an ice cliff and ran away as his leader had done his harness on his back after that no one would take the dogs out again they needed them for something else and the dogs knew it and though they were tied down and fed by hand their eyes were full of despair and fear to make things worse the old women began to tell ghost tales and to say that they had met the spirits of the dead hunters lost that autumn who all sorts of horrible things grieved more for the loss of his dog than anything else for though an eats he also knows how to starve but the hunger the darkness the cold and the exposure told on his strength and he began to hear voices inside his head and to see people who were not there out of the tail of his eye one night he had himself after ten hours waiting above a blind seal hole and was staggering back to the village faint and dizzy the second book he halted to lean his back against a which happened to be supported like a on a single point of ice his weight disturbed the balance of the thing it rolled over and as sprang aside to avoid it slid after him and hissing on the ice slope that was enough for he had been brought up to believe that every rock and had its owner its who was generally a one eyed kind of a woman thing called a and that when a meant to help a man she rolled after him inside her stone house and asked him whether he would take her for a guardian spirit in summer the ice propped rocks and roll and slip all over the face of the land so you can easily see how the idea of live stones arose heard the blood beating in his ears as he had heard it all day and he thought that was the of the stone speaking to him before he reached home he was quite certain that he had held a long conversation with her and as all his people believed that this was quite possible no one contradicted him she said to me i jump down i jump down from my place on the snow cried with hollow eyes leaning forward in the half lighted hut she said i will be a guide she says i will guide you to the good seal holes tomorrow i go out and the will guide me then the the village came in and told him the tale a second time it lost nothing in the telling follow the the spirits of the stones and they will bring us food again said the now the girl from the north had been lying near the lamp eating very little and saying less for days past but when and next morning packed and lashed a little hand for and loaded it with his hunting gear and as much and frozen seal meat as they could spare she took the rope and stepped out boldly at the boy s side your house is my house she said as the little bone shod and behind them in the awful night my house is your house said but think that we shall both go to together now is the mistress of the under world and the believe that every one who dies must spend a year in her horrible country before going to the happy place where i the second book it never and the fat trot up when you call through the village people were shouting the have spoken to they will show him open ice he will bring us the seal again their voices were soon swallowed up by the cold empty dark and and the girl shouldered close together as they strained on the pulling rope or the through the broken ice in the direction of the sea insisted that the of the stone had told him to go north and north they went under the those stars that we call the great bear no european could have made five miles a day over the ice rubbish and the sharp edged but those two knew exactly the turn of the wrist that a round a the jerk that neatly lifts it out of an ice crack and the exact strength that goes to the few quiet strokes of the spear head that make a path possible when everything looks hopeless the girl said nothing but bowed her head and the long fur fringe of her hood blew across her broad dark face the sky above them was an intense black changing to bands of indian red on the horizon where the great stars burned like street lamps from time to time a wave of the northern lights would roll across the hollow of the high heavens like a flag and disappear or a would from darkness to darkness trailing a shower of sparks behind then they could see the and surface of the tipped and with strange colors red copper and but in the ordinary everything turned to one frost bitten gray the as you will remember had been battered and tormented by the autumn till it was one frozen earthquake there were and and holes like gravel cut in ice and scattered pieces frozen down to the original floor of the of old black ice that had been thrust under the in some gale and heaved up again of ice edges of ice carved	39
by the snow that flies before the wind and sunken where thirty or forty acres lay below the level of the rest of the field from a little distance you might have taken the for seal or or men on a hunting expedition or even the great ten legged white spirit bear himself but in spite of these fantastic shapes all on the very edge of starting into life there was neither i the second book sound nor the least faint echo of sound and through this silence and through this waste where the sudden lights and went out again the and the two that pulled it crawled like things in a nightmare a nightmare of the end of the world at the end of the world when they were tired would make what the hunters call a half house a very small snow hut into which they would with the lamp and try to out the frozen when they had slept the march began again thirty miles a day to get ten miles northward the girl was always very silent but muttered to himself and broke out into songs he had learned in the singing house summer songs and and salmon songs all horribly out of place at that season he would declare that he heard the growling to him and would run wildly up a tossing his arms and speaking in loud threatening tones to tell the truth was very nearly crazy for the time being but the girl was sure that he was being guided by his guardian spirit and that everything would come right she was not surprised therefore when at the end of the fourth march whose eyes were burning like fire balls in his head told her that his was following them across the snow in the shape of a two headed dog the girl looked where pointed and something seemed to slip into a it was certainly not human but everybody knew that the preferred to appear in the shape of bear and seal and such like it might have been the ten legged white spirit bear himself or it might have been anything for and the girl were so starved that their eyes were they had nothing and seen no trace of game since they had left the village their food would not hold out for another week and there was a gale coming a storm can blow for ten days without a break and all that while it is certain death to be abroad laid up a large enough to take in the hand never be separated from your meat and while he was the last irregular block of ice that makes the key stone of the roof he saw a thing looking at him from a little cliff of ice half a mile away the air was and the thing seemed to be forty feet long and ten feet high with twenty feet of tail and a shape that quivered all along the outlines the girl saw it too but instead of crying aloud with terror a the second book said quietly that is what comes after he will speak to me said but the snow knife trembled in his hand as he spoke because however much a man may believe that he is a friend of strange and ugly spirits he seldom likes to be taken quite at his word too is the phantom of a gigantic dog without any hair who is supposed to live in the far north and to wander about the country just before things are going to happen they may be pleasant or unpleasant things but not even the care to speak about he makes the dogs go mad like the spirit bear he has several extra pairs of legs six or eight and this thing jumping up and down in the haze had more legs than any real dog needed and the girl huddled into their hut quickly of course if had wanted them he could have torn it to pieces above their heads but the sense of a foot thick snow wall between themselves and the wicked dark was great comfort the gale broke with a shriek of wind like the shriek of a train and for three days and three nights it held never varying one point and never even for a minute they fed the stone lamp between their knees and at the half warm seal meat and watched the black gather on the roof for seventy two long hours the girl counted up the food in the there was not more than two days supply and looked over the iron heads and the deer of his and his seal lance and his bird dart there was nothing else to do we shall go to soon very soon the girl whispered in three days we shall lie down and go will your do nothing sing her an song to make her come here he began to sing in the high pitched howl of the magic songs and the gale went down slowly in the middle of his song the girl started laid her hand and then her head to the ice floor of the hut followed her example and the two staring into each other s eyes and listening with every nerve he a thin of from the rim of a that lay on the and after set it upright in a little hole in the ice it down with his it was almost as delicately adjusted as a compass needle and now instead of listening they watched the thin rod quivered a little the least little jar in the world then it steadily for a few seconds the second book came to rest and again this time nodding to another point of the compass too soon said some big has broken far away outside the girl pointed at the rod and	39
shook her head it is the big breaking she said listen to the ground ice it when they this time they heard the most curious muffled and apparently under their feet sometimes it sounded as though a blind were above the lamp then as if a stone were being ground on hard ice and again like muffled blows on a drum but all dragged out and made small as though they through a little horn a weary distance away we shall not go to lying down said it is the breaking the has cheated us we shall die all this may sound absurd enough but the two were face to face with a very real danger the three days gale had driven the deep water of s bay and piled it on to the edge of the far reaching land ice that stretches from s island to the west also the strong current which sets east out of sound carried with it mile upon mile of what they call pack ice rough ice that has not frozen into fields and this pack was the at the same time that the swell and heave of the sea was and it what and the girl had been listening to were the faint echoes of that fight thirty or forty miles away and the little rod quivered to the shock of it now as the say when the ice once wakes after its long winter sleep there is no knowing what may happen for solid ice changes shape almost as quickly as a cloud the gale was evidently a spring gale sent out of time and anything was possible yet the two were happier in their minds than before if the broke up there would be no more waiting and suffering spirits and witch people were moving about on the ice and they might find themselves stepping into s country side by side with all sorts of wild things the flush of excitement still on them when they left the hut after the gale the noise on the horizon was steadily growing and the tough ice moaned and all round them it is still waiting said on the top of a sat or crouched the the second book eight legged thing that they had seen three days before and it howled horribly let us follow said the girl it may know some way that does not lead to but she from weakness as she took the the thing moved off slowly and across the heading always toward the westward and the land and they followed while the growling thunder at the edge of the rolled nearer and nearer the s lip was split and cracked in every direction for three or four miles inland and great of ten foot thick ice from a few yards to twenty acres square were and and into one another and into the yet unbroken as the heavy swell took and shook and between them this ram ice was so to speak the first army that the sea was flinging against the the incessant crash and jar of these cakes almost drowned the sound of sheets of pack ice driven bodily under the as cards are hastily pushed under a table cloth where the water was shallow these sheets would be piled one of the other till the touched mud fifty feet down and the sea behind the muddy ice till the increasing pressure drove all forward again in addition to the and the pack ice the gale and the currents were bringing down true sailing mountains of ice snapped off from the side of the water or the north shore of bay they in solemnly the waves breaking white round them and advanced on the like an old time fleet under full sail a that seemed ready to carry the world before it would ground helplessly in deep water over and in a of foam and mud and flying frozen spray while a much smaller and lower one would and ride into the flat flinging tons of ice on either side and cutting a track half a mile long before it was stopped some fell like swords a raw edged canal and others into a shower of blocks weighing scores of tons apiece that whirled and among the others again rose up bodily out of the water when they twisted as though in pain and fell on their sides while the sea over their shoulders this and crowding and bending and and of the ice into every possible shape was going on as far as the eye could reach all along the north line of the from where and the girl were the confusion looked no more than an un the second book easy rippling crawling movement under the horizon but it came toward them each moment and they could hear far away to a heavy as it might have been the boom of through a fog that showed that the was being home against the iron cliffs of island the land to the southward behind them this has never been before said staring this is not the time how can the break now follow that the girl cried pointing to the thing half half running before them they followed at the while nearer and nearer came the roaring march of the ice at last ihe fields round them cracked and in every direction and the cracks opened and snapped like the teeth of wolves but where the thing rested on a mound of old and scattered ice blocks some fifty feet high there was no motion leaped forward wildly dragging the girl after him and crawled to the bottom of the mound the talking of the ice grew louder and louder round them but the mound stayed fast and as the girl looked at him he threw his right elbow upward and outward making the sign for land in the shape of an island	39
and land it was that the eight legged thing had led them to some granite tipped sand off the coast shod and and with ice so that no man could have told it from the but at the bottom solid earth and not shifting ice the and of the as they and marked the borders of it and a friendly ran out to the northward and turned aside the rush of the heaviest ice exactly as a turns over there was danger of course that some heavily squeezed ice field might shoot up the beach and plane off the top of the bodily but that did not trouble and the girl when they made their snow house and began to eat and heard the ice hammer and along the beach the thing had disappeared and was talking excitedly about his power over spirits as he crouched round the lamp in the middle of his wild sayings the girl began to laugh and rock herself backward and forward behind her shoulder crawling into the hut crawl by crawl there were two heads one yellow and one black that belonged to two of the most sorrowful and ashamed dogs that ever you saw the dog was one and the black the second book leader was the other both were now fat and quite restored to their proper minds but coupled to each other in an extraordinary fashion when the black leader ran off you remember his harness was still on him he must have met the dog and played or fought with him for his shoulder had caught in the copper wire of s collar and had drawn tight so that neither could get at the trace to it apart but each was fastened to his neighbor s neck that with the freedom of hunting on their own account must have helped to cure their madness they were very sober the girl pushed the two creatures toward and sobbing with laughter cried that is who led us to safe ground look at his eight legs and double head cut them free and they fell into his arms yellow and black together trying to explain how they had got their senses back again ran a hand down their ribs which were round and well clothed they have found food he said with a grin i do not think we shall go to so soon my sent these the sickness has left them as soon as they had greeted these two who had been forced to sleep and eat and hunt together for the past few weeks flew at each other s throat and there was a beautiful battle in the snow house empty dogs do not fight said they have found the seal let us sleep we shall find food when they there was open water on the north beach of the island and all the loosened ice had been driven the first sound of the surf is one of the most delightful that the can hear for it means that spring is on the road and the girl took hold of hands and smiled for the clear full roar of the among the ice reminded them of salmon and time and the smell of ground even as they looked the sea began to over between the floating cakes of ice so intense was the cold but on the horizon there was a vast red glare and that was the light of the sunken sun it was more like hearing him in his sleep than seeing him rise and the glare only lasted for a few minutes but it marked the turn of the year nothing they felt could alter that found the dogs fighting over a fresh killed seal who was following the fish that a gale always he was the first of some the second book twenty or thirty seal that landed on the island in the course of the day and till the sea hard there were hundreds of keen black heads rejoicing in the shallow free water and floating about with the floating ice it was good to eat seal liver again to fill the lamps with and watch the flame blaze three feet in the air but as soon as the new sea ice bore and the girl loaded the hand and made the two dogs pull as they had never pulled in their lives for they feared what might have happened in their village the weather was as pitiless as usual but it is easier to draw a loaded with good food than to hunt starving they left five and twenty seal buried in the ice of the beach all ready for use and hurried back to their people the dogs showed them the way as soon as told them what was expected and though there was no sign of a in two days they were giving tongue outside s house only three dogs answered them the others had been eaten and the houses were all dark but when shouted boiled meat weak voices replied and when he called the muster of the village name by name very distinctly there were no in it an hour later the lamps blazed in s snow water was the pots were beginning to and the snow was dripping from the roof as made ready a meal for all the village and the boy baby in the hood at a strip of rich and the hunters slowly and filled themselves to the very brim with seal meat and the girl told their tale the two dogs sat between them and whenever their names came in they cocked an ear apiece and looked most thoroughly ashamed of themselves a dog who has once gone mad and recovered the say is safe against all further attacks so the did not forget us said the storm blew the ice broke and the seal swam in behind the fish that were frightened by the	39
storm now the new seal holes are not two days distant let the good hunters go to morrow and bring back the seal i have twenty five seal buried in the ice when we have eaten those we will all follow the seal on the what do you do said the in the same sort of voice as he used to richest of the looked at the girl from the north and said quietly we build a house he pointed to the side of s house for that is the side on which the married son or daughter always lives the second book the girl turned her hands palm upward with a little despairing shake of her head she was a foreigner picked up starving and could bring nothing to the housekeeping jumped from the bench where she sat and began to sweep things into the girl s lap stone lamps iron skin tin embroidered with ox teeth and real canvas needles such as sailors use the finest that has ever been given on the far edge of the circle and the girl from the north bowed her head down to the very floor also these said laughing and to the dogs who thrust their cold into the girl s face ah said the with an important cough as though he had been thinking it all over as soon as left the village i went to the singing house and sang magic i sang all the long nights and called upon the spirit of the my singing made the gale blow that broke the ice and drew the two dogs toward when the ice would have crushed his bones my song drew the seal in behind the broken ice my body lay still in the but my spirit ran about on the ice and guided and the dogs in all the things they did i did it everybody was full and sleepy so no one contradicted and the by virtue of his office helped himself to yet another lump of boiled meat and lay down to sleep with the others in the warm well lighted oil smelling home now who drew very well in the fashion scratched pictures of all these adventures on a long flat piece of ivory with a hole at one end when he and the girl went north to land in the year of the wonderful open winter he left the picture story with who lost it in the when his dog broke down one summer on the beach of lake at and there a lake found it next spring and sold it to a man at who was on a sound and he sold it to who was afterward a on board a big steamer that took to the north cape in when the season was over the steamer ran between london and stopping at and there sold the ivory to a for two imitation i found it under some rubbish in a house at and have translated it from one end to the other this is a very free translation of the song of the returning hunter as the men used to sing it after the always repeat things over and over again ur gloves are stiff with the frozen blood our with the drifted snow as we come in with the seal the seal in from the edge of the and the dog go and the long crack and the men come back back from the edge of the we our seal to his secret place we heard him scratch below we made our mark and we watched beside out on the edge of the we raised our lance when he rose to breathe we drove it downward so and we played him thus and we killed him thus out on the edge of the our gloves are with the frozen blood our eyes with the drifting snow but we come back to our wives again back from the edge of the and the loaded dog go and the wives can hear their men come back back from the edge of the red dog for our white and our excellent nights for the nights of swift running fair far seeing good hunting sure cunning for the smells of the dawning ere dew has departed i for the rush through the mist and the blind started i for the cry of our mates when the has wheeled and is standing at bay for the risk and the riot of night for the sleep at the mouth by day it is met and we go to the fight bay o bay red dog t was after the letting in of the that the part of s life began he had the good conscience that comes from paying debts all the was his friend and just a little afraid of him the things that he did and saw and heard when he was wandering from one people to another with or without his four companions would make many stories each as long as this one so you will never be told how he met the mad elephant of who killed the second book two and twenty drawing eleven carts of silver to the government treasury and scattered the shiny in the dust how he fought the all one long night in the of the north and broke his knife on the brute s back plates how he found a new and longer knife round the neck of a man who had been killed by a wild and how he that and killed him as a fair price for the knife how he was caught up once in the great famine by the moving of the deer and nearly crushed to death in the swaying hot herds how he saved the silent from being once more in a pit with a stake at the bottom and how next day he himself	39
fell into a very cunning trap and how broke the thick wooden bars to pieces above him how he the wild in the swamp and how but we must tell one tale at a time father and mother wolf died and rolled a big against the mouth of their cave and cried the death song over them grew very old and stiff and even whose nerves were steel and whose muscles were iron was a shade slower on the kill than he had been turned from gray to white with pure red dog age his ribs stuck out and he walked as though he had been made of wood and killed for him but the young wolves the children of the pack and increased and when there were about forty of them full clean footed five year told them that they ought to gather themselves together and follow the law and run under one head as the free people this was not a question in which concerned himself for as he said he had eaten sour fruit and he knew the tree it hung from but when son of his father was the gray in the days of s fought his way to the of the pack according to law and the old calls and songs began to ring under the stars once more came to the council rock for memory s sake when he chose to speak the pack waited till he had finished and he sat at s side on the rock above those were days of good hunting and good sleeping no stranger cared to break into the that belonged to s people as they called the pack and the young wolves grew fat and strong and there were many to bring to the looking over always attended a looking over re the second book the night when a black bought a naked brown baby into the pack and the long call look look well o wolves made his heart flutter otherwise he would be far away in the with his four brothers touching seeing and feeling new things one twilight when he was trotting leisurely across the to give the half of a buck that he had killed while the four behind him a little and tumbling one another over for joy of being alive he heard a cry that had never been heard since the bad days of it was what they call in the the a hideous kind of shriek that the gives when he is hunting behind a tiger or when there is a big killing if you can imagine a mixture of hate triumph fear and despair with a kind of running through it you will get some notion of the that rose and sank and wavered and far away across the the four stopped at once and growling s hand went to his knife and he checked the blood in his face his eyebrows knotted there is no striped one dare kill here he said that is not the cry of the an red dog gray brother it is some great killing listen it broke out again half sobbing and half just as though the had soft human lips then drew deep breath and ran to the council rock on his way hurrying wolves of the pack and were on the rock together and below them every nerve strained sat the others the mothers and the were off to their for when the cries it is no time for weak things to be abroad they could hear nothing except the rushing and in the dark and the light evening winds among the tree tops till suddenly across the river a wolf called it was no wolf of the pack for they were all at the rock the note changed to a long despairing bay and it said they heard tired feet on the rocks and a gaunt wolf with red on his his right fore useless and his jaws white with foam flung himself into the circle and lay gasping at s feet good hunting under whose said gravely good hunting won am i was the an the second book he meant that he was a solitary wolf for himself his mate and his in some lonely as do many wolves in the south won means an one who lies out from any pack then he panted and they could see his heart beats shake him backward and forward what moves said for that is the question all the asks after cries the the of the red dog the they came north from the south saying the was empty and killing out by the way when this moon was new there were four to me my mate and three she would teach them to kill on the grass plains hiding to drive the buck as we do who are of the open at midnight i heard them together full tongue on the trail at the dawn wind i found them stiff in the grass four free people four when this moon was new then sought i my blood right and found the how many said quickly the pack growled deep in their throats i do not know three of them will kill no more but at the last they drove me like the buck on my three legs they drove me look free people red dog he thrust out his fore foot all dark with dried blood there were cruel low down on his side and his throat was torn and worried eat said rising up from the meat had brought him and the flung himself on it this shall be no loss he said humbly when he had taken off the first edge of his hunger give me a little strength free people and i also will kill my is empty that was full when this moon was new and the blood debt is not	39
s voice was not a moon since there was a with a knife threw stones at my head and called me bad little tree cat names because i lay asleep in the open ay and turned every driven deer to all the winds and was hunting and this same was too deaf to hear his whistle and leave the deer roads free answered sitting down among the painted now this same comes with soft words to this same telling him that he is wise and strong and beautiful and this same old believes and makes a place thus for this same stone throwing and art thou at ease now could give thee so good a resting place had as usual made a sort of soft half of himself under s weight the boy reached out in the darkness and gathered in the cable like neck till s head rested on his shoulder and then he told him all that had happened in the that night wise i may be said at the end but deaf i surely am else i should have heard the red dog small wonder the of grass are uneasy how many be the i have not yet seen i came hot foot to thee thou art older than but oh here with sheer joy it will be good hunting few of us will see another moon dost thou strike in this remember thou art a man and remember what pack cast thee out let the wolf look to the dog thou art a man last year s nuts are this year s black earth said it is true that i am a man but it is in my stomach that this night i have said that i am a wolf i called the river and the trees to remember i am of the free people till the has gone by free people free thieves and thou hast tied into the death knot for the sake of the memory of the dead wolves this is no good hunting it is my word which i have spoken the trees know the river knows till the have gone by my word comes not back to me this changes all i had thought to take thee away with me to the northern but the word even the word of the second book a little naked is the word now i say think well lest thou tie into the death knot also i need no word from thee for well i know be it so then said i will give no word but what is in thy stomach to do when the come they must swim the i thought to meet them with my knife in the the pack behind me and so and thrusting we a little might turn them down stream or cool their throats the do not turn and their throats are hot said there will be neither nor wolf when that hunting is done but only dry bones if we die we die it will be most good hunting but my stomach is young and i have not seen many rains i am not wise nor strong hast thou a better plan i have seen a hundred and a hundred rains ere cast his milk my trail was big in the dust by the first egg i am older than many trees and i have seen all that the has done but this is new hunting said red dog never before have the crossed our trail what is has been what will be is no more than a forgotten year striking backward be still while i count those my years for a long hour lay back among the while his head motionless on the ground thought of all that he had seen and known since the day he came from the egg the light seemed to go out of his eyes and leave them like stale and now and again he made little stiff passes with his head right and left as though he were hunting in his sleep quietly for he knew that there is nothing like sleep before hunting and he was trained to take it at any hour of the day or night then he felt s back grow bigger and broader below him as the huge puffed himself out hissing with the noise of a sword drawn from a steel i have seen all the dead seasons said at last and the great trees and the old and the rocks that were bare and sharp pointed ere the moss grew art still alive it is only a little after said i do not understand h h am again i knew it was but the second book a little time now we will go to the river and i will show thee what is to be done against the he turned straight as an arrow for the main stream of the plunging in a little above the pool that hid the peace rock at his side nay do not swim i go swiftly my back little brother tucked his left arm round s neck dropped his right close to his body and straightened his feet then the current as he alone could and the ripple of the checked water stood up in a round s neck and his feet were waved to and fro in the under the s sides a mile or two above the peace rock the between a of marble rocks from eighty to a hundred feet high and the current runs like a mill race between and over all manner of ugly stones but did not trouble his head about the water little water in the world could have given him a moment s fear he was looking at the on either side and uneasily for there was a smell in the air very like the smell of a big ant hill	39
on a hot day instinctively he lowered himself in the water only red dog raising his head to breathe from time to time and came to anchor with a double twist of his tail round a sunken rock holding in the hollow of a while the water on this is the place of death said the boy why do we come they sleep said will not turn aside for the striped one yet and the striped one together turn aside for the and the they say turn aside for nothing and yet for whom do the little people of the rocks turn aside tell me master of the who is the master of the these whispered it is the place of death let us go nay look well for they are asleep it is as it was when i was not the length of thy arm the split and rocks of the of the had been used since the beginning of the by the little people of the rocks the busy furious black wild bees of india and as knew well all turned off half a mile before they reached the for centuries the little people had and from to and again the white marble with stale honey and made their tall and deep in the dark the second book of the inner where neither man nor beast nor fire nor water had ever touched them the length of the on both sides was hung as it were with black velvet curtains and sank as he looked for those were the millions of the sleeping bees there were other and and things like decayed tree trunks studded on the face of the rock the old of past years or new cities built in the shadow of the and huge masses of rotten had rolled down and stuck among the trees and that clung to the rock face as he listened he heard more than once the rustle and slide of a honey loaded comb turning over or falling away somewhere in the dark galleries then a of angry wings and the sullen of the wasted honey along till it over some ledge in the open air and down on the twigs there was a tiny little beach not five feet broad on one side of the river and that was piled high with the rubbish of years there were dead bees and stale and wings of that had strayed in after honey all tumbled in smooth piles of the finest black dust the mere sharp smell of it was enough to frighten anything that red dog had no wings and knew what the little people were moved up stream again till he came to a sandy bar at the head of the here is this season s kill said he look on the bank lay the of a couple of young deer and a could see that neither wolf nor had touched the bones which were laid out naturally they came beyond the line they did not know the law murmured and the little people killed them let us go ere they wake they do not wake till the dawn said now i will tell thee a hunted buck from the south many many rains ago came hither from the south not knowing the a pack on his trail being made blind by fear he leaped from above the pack running by sight for they were hot and blind on the trail the sun was high and the little people were many and very angry many too were those of the pack who leaped into the but they were dead ere they took water those who did not leap died also in the rocks above but the buck lived how because he came first running for his life leaping ere the little people were aware and the second book was in the river when they gathered to kill the pack following was altogether lost under the weight of the little people the buck lived repeated slowly at least he did not die then though none waited his coming down with a strong body to hold him safe against the water as a certain old fat deaf yellow would wait for a yea though there were all the of the on his trail what is in thy stomach s head was close to s ear and it was a little time before the boy answered it is to pull the very whiskers of death but thou art indeed the wisest of all the so many have said look now if the follow thee as surely they will follow ho ho i have many little thorns under my tongue to into their hides if they follow thee hot and blind looking only at thy shoulders those who do not die up above will take water either here or lower down for the little people will rise up and cover them now the is hungry water and they will have no to hold them but will go down such as live to the by the red dog and there thy pack may meet them by the throat a hat better could not be till the rains fall in the dry season there is now only the little matter of the run and the leap i will make me known to the so that they shall follow me very closely hast thou seen the rocks above thee from the side indeed no that i had forgotten go look it is all rotten ground cut and full of holes one of thy clumsy feet set down without seeing would end the hunt see i leave thee here and for thy sake only i will carry word to the pack that they may know where to look for the for myself i am not of one skin with any wolf when disliked an acquaintance he could be more unpleasant than any of	39
the people except perhaps he swam and opposite the rock he came on and listening to the night noises dogs he said cheerfully the will come down stream if ye be not afraid ye can kill them in the when come they said and where is my man said o the second book they come when they come said wait and see as for thy man from whom thou hast taken a word and so laid him open to death thy man is with me and if he be not already dead the fault is none of thine dog wait here for the and be glad that the man and i strike on thy side he flashed up stream again and himself in the middle of the looking upward at the line of the cliff presently he saw s head move against the stars and then there was a in the air the keen clean of a body falling feet first and next minute the boy was at rest again in the of s body it is no leap by night said quietly i have jumped twice as far for sport but that is an evil place above low bushes and that go down very deep all full of the little people i have put big stones one above the other by the side of three these i shall throw down with my feet in running and the little people will rise up behind me very angry that is man s talk and man s cunning said thou art wise but the little people are always angry nay at twilight all wings near and far rest for a while i will play with the at twilight red dog for the best by day he follows now won s blood trail does not leave a dead ox nor the the blood trail said then i will make him a new blood trail of his own blood if i can and give him dirt to eat thou wilt stay here till i come again with my ay but what if they kill thee in the or the little people kill thee before thou leap down to the river when to morrow comes we will kill for tomorrow said quoting a saying and again when i am dead it is time to sing the death song good hunting he his arm from the s neck and went down the like a log in a toward the far bank where he found and laughing aloud from sheer happiness there was nothing liked better than as he himself said to pull the whiskers of death and make the know that he was their he had often with s help robbed bees nests in single trees and he knew that the little people hated the smell of wild so he gathered a small bundle of it tied it up with a bark string and then followed won s the second book trail as it ran from the for some five miles looking at the trees with his head on one side and as he looked the have i been said he to himself the wolf have i said that i am now the must i be before i am the buck at the end i shall be the man ho and he slid his thumb along the eighteen inch blade of his knife won s trail all rank with dark blood spots ran under a forest of thick trees that grew close together and stretched away gradually growing thinner and thinner to within two miles of the bee rocks from the last tree to the low of the bee rocks was open country where there was hardly cover enough to hide a wolf trotted along under the trees judging distances between branch and branch occasionally climbing up a trunk and taking a trial leap from one tree to another till he came to the open ground which he studied very carefully for an hour then he turned picked up won s trail where he had left it settled himself in a tree with an branch some eight feet from the ground and sat still his knife on the sole of his foot and singing to himself red dog a little before midday when the sun was very warm he heard the of feet and smelt the abominable smell of the pack as they trotted along won s trail seen from above the red does not look half the size of a wolf but knew how strong his feet and jaws were he watched the sharp bay head of the leader along the trail and gave him good hunting the brute looked up and his companions halted behind him scores and scores of red dogs with low hung tails heavy shoulders weak quarters and bloody mouths the are a silent people as a rule and they have no manners even in their own fully two hundred must have gathered below him but he could see that the leaders on won s trail and tried to drag the pack forward that would never do or they would be at the in broad daylight and intended to hold them under his tree till dusk by whose leave do ye come here said all are our was the reply and the that gave it his white teeth looked down with a smile and perfectly the sharp chatter of the the second book leaping rat of the meaning the to understand that he considered them no better than the pack closed up round the and the leader savagely calling a tree for all answer stretched down one naked leg and his bare toes just above the leader s head that was enough and more than enough to wake the pack to stupid rage those who have hair between their toes do not care to be reminded of it caught his foot away as the leader leaped up and said sweetly	39
dog red dog go back to the and eat go to thy brother dog dog red red dog there is hair between every toe he his toes a second time come down ere we starve thee out the pack and this was exactly what wanted he laid himself down along the branch his cheek to the bark his right arm free and there he told the pack what he thought and knew about them their manners their customs their mates and their there is no speech in the world so and so as the language the people use to show scorn and contempt when you come to think of it you will see how this must be so as red dog told he had many little thorns under his tongue and slowly and deliberately he drove the from silence to from to and from to hoarse slavery they tried to answer his but a might as well have tried to answer in a rage and all the while s right hand lay crooked at his side ready for action his feet locked round the branch the big bay leader had leaped many times in the air but dared not risk a false blow at last made furious beyond his natural strength he bounded up seven or eight feet clear of the ground then s hand shot out like the head of a tree snake and him by the of his neck and the branch shook with the jar as his weight fell back almost to the ground but he never his grasp and inch by inch he hauled the beast hanging like a drowned up on the branch with his left hand he reached for his knife and cut off the red tail flinging the back to earth again that was all he needed the pack would not go forward on won s trail now till they had killed or had killed them he saw them settle down in circles with a quiver of the that meant they were going to stay and so he climbed to a higher the second book settled his back comfortably and went to sleep after four or five hours he and counted the pack they were all there silent and dry with eyes of steel the sun was beginning to sink in half an hour the little people of the rocks would be ending their labors and as he knew the does not fight best in the twilight i did not need such faithful he said politely standing up on a branch but i will remember this ye be true but to my thinking over much of one kind for that reason i do not give the big his tail again art thou not pleased red dog i myself will tear out thy stomach the leader scratching at the foot of the tree nay but consider wise rat of the there will now be many of little red dogs yea with raw red that sting when the sand is hot go home red dog and cry that an has done this ye will not go come then with me and i will make you very wise he moved log fashion into the next tree and so on into the next and the next the pack following with lifted hungry heads now and then he would pretend to fall and the pack red dog would tumble one over the other in their haste to be at the death it was a curious sight the boy with the knife that shone in the low sunlight as it shifted through the upper branches and the silent pack with their red coats all and following below when he came to the last tree he took the and rubbed himself all over carefully and the with scorn with a tongue dost thou think to cover thy scent they said we follow to the death take thy tail said flinging it back along the course he had taken the pack instinctively rushed after it and follow now to the death he had slipped down the tree trunk and headed like the wind in bare feet for the bee rocks before the saw what he would do they gave one deep howl and settled down to the long that can at the last run down anything that runs knew their pack pace to be much slower than that of the wolves or he would never have risked a two mile run in full sight they were sure that the boy was theirs at last and he was sure that he held them to play with as he pleased all his trouble was to keep them sufficiently hot behind him to the second book prevent their turning soon he ran and the leader not five yards behind him and the pack out over perhaps a quarter of a mile of ground crazy and blind with the rage of slaughter so he kept his distance by ear his last effort for the rush across the bee rocks the little people had gone to sleep in the early twilight for it was not the season of flowers but as s first rang hollow on the hollow ground he heard a sound as though all the earth were humming then he ran as he had never run in his life before aside one two three of the piles of stones into the dark sweet smelling heard a roar like the roar of the sea in a cave saw with the tail of his eye the air grow dark behind him saw the current of the far below and a flat diamond shaped head in the water leaped outward with all his strength the snapping at his shoulder in mid and dropped feet first to the safety of the river breathless and triumphant there was not a sting upon him for the smell of the had checked the little people	39
for just the few seconds that he was among them when he rose s were him and things were bounding over the edge of red dog the cliff great it of clustered bees falling like but before any lump touched water the bees flew upward and the body of a whirled down stream overhead they could hear furious short that were drowned in a roar like the roar of the wings of the little people of the rocks some of the too had fallen into the that communicated with the and there choked and fought and snapped among the tumbled and at last borne up even when they were dead on the heaving waves of bees beneath them shot out of some hole in the to roll over on the black rubbish heaps there were who had leaped short into the trees on the cliffs and the bees blotted out their shapes but the greater number of them by the had flung themselves into the river and as said the was hungry water held fast till the boy had recovered his breath we may not stay here he said the little people are roused indeed come swimming low and as often as he could went down the river knife in hand slowly slowly said one tooth does the second book not kill a hundred unless it be a s and many of the took water swiftly when they saw the little people rise the more work for my knife then how the little people follow sank again the face of the water was with wild bees sullenly and all they found nothing was ever yet lost by silence said no sting could penetrate his scales and thou hast all the long night for the hunting hear them howl nearly half the pack had seen the trap their fellows rushed into and turning sharp aside had flung themselves into the water where the broke down in steep banks their cries of rage and their threats against the tree who had brought them to their shame mixed with the and of those who had been punished by the little people to remain ashore was death and every knew it their pack was swept along the current down to the deep of the peace pool but even there the angry little people followed and forced them to the water again could hear the voice of the leader bidding his people hold on and kill out every wolf in but he did not waste his time in listening red dog one in the dark behind us snapped a here is water had forward like an a struggling under water before he could open his mouth and dark rings rose as the body up turning on its side the tried to turn but the current prevented them and the little people darted at their heads and ears and they could hear the challenge of the pack growing louder and deeper in the gathering darkness again and again a went under and rose dead and again the broke out at the rear of the pack some howling that it was best to go ashore others calling on their leader to lead them back to the and others bidding show himself and be killed they come to the fight with two and several voices said the rest is with thy brethren below yonder the little people go back to sleep they have chased us far now i too turn back for i am not of one skin with any wolf good hunting little brother and remember the low a wolf came running along the bank on three legs leaping up and down laying his head sideways close to the ground his back and the second book breaking high into the air as though he were playing with his it was won the and he said never a word but continued his horrible sport beside the they had been long in the water now and were swimming wearily their coats and heavy their tails dragging like so tired and shaken that they too were silent watching the pair of blazing eyes that moved abreast this is no good hunting said one panting good hunting said as he rose boldly at the brute s side and sent the long knife home behind the shoulder pushing hard to avoid his dying snap art thou there man said won across the water ask of the dead replied have none come down stream i have filled these dogs mouths with dirt i have them in the broad daylight and their leader his tail but here be some few for thee still whither shall i drive them i will wait said won the night is before me nearer and nearer came the bay of the wolves for the pack for the full pack it is met and a bend in the river drove the red dog forward among the sands and opposite the then they saw their mistake they should have landed half a mile higher up and rushed the wolves on dry ground now it was too late the bank was lined with burning eyes and except for the horrible that had never stopped since there was no sound in the it seemed as though won were on them to come ashore and turn and take hold said the leader of the the entire pack flung themselves at the shore and through the water till the face of the was all white and torn and the great went from side to side like bow waves from a boat followed the rush and as the huddled together rushed up the river beach in one wave then the long fight began heaving and straining and and scattering and and along the red wet sands and over and between the tangled tree roots and through and among the and in and out of the grass for even now the were two	39
to one but they met wolves fighting for all that made the pack and not only the short high deep white hunters of the the second book pack but the anxious eyed the of the as the saying is fighting for their with here and there a wolf his first coat still half and by their sides a wolf you must know flies at the throat or at the flank while a by preference at the belly so when the were struggling out of the water and had to raise their heads the odds were with the wolves on dry land the wolves suffered but in the water or ashore s knife came and went without ceasing the four had worried their way to his side gray brother crouched between the boy s knees was protecting his stomach while the others guarded his back and either side or stood over him when the shock of a leaping yelling who had thrown himself full on the steady blade bore him down for the rest it was one tangled confusion a locked and swaying mob that moved from right to left and from left to right along the bank and also ground round and round slowly on its own here would be a heaving mound like a water in a which would break like a water and throw up four or five dogs each striving to get back to the here would be a single wolf borne down by two or three dog laboriously dragging them forward and sinking the while here a would be held up by the pressure round him though he had been killed early while his mother with dumb rage rolled over and over snapping and passing on and in the middle of the press perhaps one wolf and one forgetting everything else would be for first hold till they were whirled away by a rush of furious once passed a on either flank and his all but jaws closed over the of a third and once he saw his teeth set in the throat of a the unwilling beast forward till the could finish him but the bulk of the fight was blind and in the dark hit trip and tumble groan and worry worry worry round him and behind him and above him as the night wore on the quick giddy go round motion increased the were and afraid to attack the stronger wolves but did not yet dare to run away felt that the end was coming soon and contented himself with striking merely to the were growing bolder there was time now and again to breathe and pass a word to a friend and the mere of the knife would sometimes turn a dog aside the second book the meat is very near the bone gray brother he was bleeding from a score of flesh wounds but the bone is yet to be cracked said thus do we do in the the red blade ran like a flame along the side of a whose hind quarters were hidden by the weight of a clinging wolf my kill the wolf through his wrinkled nostrils leave him to me is thy stomach still empty said won was fearfully punished but his grip had the who could not turn round and reach him by the bull that bought me said with a bitter laugh it is the one and indeed it was the big bay colored leader it is not wise to kill and went on wiping the blood out of his eyes unless one has also killed the and it is in my stomach that this won thee a leaped to his leader s aid but before his teeth had found won s flank s knife was in his throat and gray brother took what was left and thus do we do in the said red dog won said not a word only his jaws were closing and closing on the as his life the shuddered his head dropped and he lay still and won dropped above him the blood debt is paid said sing the song won he no more said gray brother and too is silent this long time the bone is cracked thundered son of they go kill kill out o hunters of the free people after was away from those dark and bloody sands to the river to the thick up stream or down stream as he saw the road clear the debt the debt shouted pay the debt they have slain the lone wolf let not a dog go he was flying to the river knife in hand to check any who dared to take water when from under a mound of nine dead rose s red head and fore quarters and dropped on his knees beside the lone wolf said i not it would be my last fight panted it is good hunting and thou little brother the second book i live having killed many even so i die and i would i would die by thee little brother took the terrible head on his knees and put his arms round the torn neck it is long since the old days of and a man that rolled naked in the dust nay nay i am a wolf i am of one skin with the free people cried it is no will of mine that i am a man thou art a man little brother of my watching thou art a man or else the pack had fled before the my life i owe to thee and to day thou hast saved the pack even as once i saved thee hast thou forgotten all debts are paid now go to thine own people i tell thee again eye of my eye this hunting is ended go to thine own people i will never go i will hunt alone in the i have said it after the summer	39
come the rains and after the rains comes the spring go back before thou art driven who will drive me will drive go back to thy people go to man when drives i will go answered red dog there is no more to say said little brother thou raise me to my feet i also was a leader of the free people very carefully and gently lifted the bodies aside and raised to his feet both arms round him and the lone wolf drew a long breath and began the death song that a leader of the pack should sing when he dies it gathered strength as he went on lifting and lifting and ringing far across the river till it came to the last good hunting and shook himself clear of for an instant and leaping into the air fell backward dead upon his last and most terrible kill sat with the head on his knees careless of anything else while the remnant of the flying were being overtaken and run down by the merciless little by little the cries died away and the wolves returned as their wounds to take stock of the losses fifteen of the pack as well as half a dozen lay dead by the river and of the others not one was and sat through it all till the cold daybreak when s wet red was dropped in his hand and drew back to show the gaunt body of good hunting said as though o the second book were still alive and then over his bitten shoulder to the others howl dogs a wolf has died to night but of all the pack of two hundred fighting whose boast was that all were their and that no living thing could stand before them not one returned to the to carry that word song this is the song that sang as the dropped down one after another to the river bed when the great fight was finished is good friends with everybody but he is a cold blooded kind of creature at heart because he knows that almost everybody in the comes to him in the long run were my companions going forth by night for look you for now come i to whistle them the ending of the fight of word they gave me overhead of newly slain word i gave them of buck upon the plain here s an end of every trail they shall not speak again they that called the hunting cry they that followed fast for look you for the second book they that bade the wheel and pinned him as he passed of chill they that behind the scent they that ran before they that the level horn they that here s an end of every trail they shall not follow more these were my companions pity t was tliey died for chill look you for now come i to comfort them that knew them in their pride of tattered flank and sunken eye open mouth and red locked and and lone they lie the dead upon their dead here s an end of every trail and here my hosts are fed the spring running man goes to man cry the challenge through the he that was our brother goes away hear now and judge o ye people of the answer who shall turn him who shall stay man goes to man he is weeping in the he that was our brother sorrows sore i man goes to man i oh we loved him in the to the man trail where we may not follow more the spring running he second year after the great fight with red dog and the death of must have been nearly seventeen years old he looked older for hard exercise the best of good eating and whenever he felt in the least hot or dusty had given him strength and growth far beyond his age he could swing by one hand from a top branch for half an hour at a time when he had occasion to look along the tree roads he could stop a young buck in mid the second book gallop and throw him sideways by the head he could even jerk over the big blue wild that lived in the of the north the people who used to fear him for his wits feared him now for his strength and when he moved quietly on his own affairs the mere whisper of his coming cleared the wood paths and yet the look in his eyes was always gentle even when he fought his eyes never blazed as s did they only grew more and more interested and excited and that was one of the things that himself did not understand he asked about it and the boy laughed and said when i miss the kill i am angry when i must go empty for two days i am very angry do not my eyes talk then the mouth is angry said but the eyes say nothing hunting eating or swimming it is all one like a stone in wet or dry weather looked at him lazily from under his long and as usual the s head dropped knew his master they were lying out far up the side of a hill overlooking the and the morning mist hung below them in bands of white and green as the sun rose it changed into seas of red gold off and let the the spring running low rays the dried grass on which and were resting it was the end of the cold weather the leaves and the trees looked worn and faded and there was a dry rustle everywhere when the wind blew a little leaf tap tap tapped furiously against a as a single leaf caught in a current will it roused for he the morning air	39
with a deep hollow cough threw himself on his back and struck with his fore at the nodding leaf above the year turns he said the goes forward the time of new talk is near that leaf knows it is very good the grass is dry answered pulling up a even eye of the spring that is a little trumpet shaped red flower that runs in and out among the even eye of the spring is shut and it well for the black so to lie on his back and beat with his in the air as though he were the tree cat said he seemed to be thinking of other things i say it well for the black so to mouth and cough and howl and roll remember we be the masters of the thou and i the second book indeed yes i hear man rolled over hurriedly and sat up the dust on his ragged black he was just casting his winter coat we be surely the masters of the who is so strong as who so wise there was a curious in the voice that made turn to see whether by any chance the black were making fun of him for the is full of words that sound like one thing but mean another i said we be beyond question the masters of the repeated have i done wrong i did not know that the man no longer lay upon the ground does he fly then sat with his elbows on his knees looking out across the valley at the daylight somewhere down in the woods below a bird was trying over in a voice the first few notes of his spring song it was no more than a shadow of the liquid tumbling call he would be pouring later but heard it i said the time of new talk is near growled the his tail i hear answered why dost thou shake all over the sun is warm that is the scarlet said he has not forgotten now i too the spring running must remember my song and he began and to himself back dissatisfied again and again there is no game said little brother are both thine ears stopped that is no killing word but my song that i make ready against the need i had forgotten i shall know when the time of new talk is here because then thou and the others all run away and leave me alone spoke rather savagely but indeed little brother began we do not always i say ye do said shooting out his forefinger angrily ye do run away and i who am the master of the must needs walk alone how was it last season when i would gather sugar cane from the fields of a man pack i sent a i sent thee to bidding him to come upon such a night and pluck the sweet grass for me with his trunk he came only two nights later said a little and of that long sweet grass that pleased thee so he gathered more than any man could eat in all the nights of the rains that was no fault of mine he did not come upon the night when i sent the second book him the word no he was and and roaring through the valleys in the moonlight his trail was like the trail of three for he would not hide among the trees he danced in the moonlight before the houses of the man pack i saw him and yet he would not come to me and am the master of the it was the time of new talk said the always very humble perhaps little brother thou not that time call him by a master word listen to and be glad s bad temper seemed to have boiled itself away he lay back with his head on his arms his eyes shut i do not know nor do i care he said let us sleep my stomach is heavy in me make me a rest for my head the lay down again with a sigh because he could hear and his song against the of new talk as they say in an indian the seasons slide one into the other almost without division there seem to be only two the wet and the dry but if you look below the torrents of rain and the clouds of and dust you will find all four the spring running going round in their regular ring spring is the most wonderful because she has not to cover a clean bare field with new leaves and flowers but to drive before her and to put away the hanging on over of half green things which the gentle winter has suffered to live and to make the partly dressed stale earth feel new and young once more and this she does so well that there is no spring in the world like the spring there is one day when all things are tired and the very smells as they drift on the heavy air are old and used one cannot explain this but it feels so then there is another day to the eye nothing whatever has changed when all the smells are new and delightful and the whiskers of the people quiver to their roots and the winter hair comes away from their sides in long locks then perhaps a little rain falls and all the trees and the bushes and the and the and the plants wake with a noise of growing that you can almost hear and under this noise runs day and night a deep hum that is the noise of the spring a boom which is neither bees nor falling water nor the wind in tree tops but the of the warm happy world the second book up to this year had	39
always delighted in the turn of the seasons it was he who generally saw the first eye of the spring deep down among the and the first bank of spring clouds which are like nothing else in the his voice could be heard in all sorts of wet places helping the big through their or mocking the little down that through the white nights like all his people spring was the season he chose for his moving for the mere joy of rushing through the warm air thirty forty or fifty miles between twilight and the morning star and coming back panting and laughing and with strange flowers the four did not follow him on these wild of the but went off to sing songs with other wolves the people are very busy in the spring and could hear them and screaming and whistling according to their kind their voices then are different from their voices at other times of the year and that is one of the reasons why spring in the is called the time of new talk but that spring as he told his stomach was changed in him ever since the shoots turned brown he had been looking the spring running forward to the morning when the smells should change but when the morning came and the blazing in bronze and blue and gold cried it aloud all along the misty woods and opened his mouth to send on the cry the words choked between his teeth and a feeling came over him that began at his toes and ended in his hair a feeling of pure so that he looked himself over to be sure that he had not trod on a thorn cried the new smells the other birds took it over and from the rocks by the he heard s hoarse scream something between the scream of an eagle and the of a horse there was a yelling and scattering of log in the new branches above and there stood his chest filled to answer sinking in little as the breath was driven out of it by this he stared all round him but he could see no more than the mocking log through the trees and his tail spread in full splendor dancing on the slopes below the smells have changed screamed good hunting little brother where is thy answer little brother good hunting whistled the second book the and his mate down together the two under s nose so close that a pinch of white feathers brushed away a light spring rain elephant rain they call it drove across the in a belt half a mile wide left the new leaves wet and nodding behind and died out in a double rainbow and a light roll of thunder the spring hum broke out for a minute and was silent but all the folk seemed to be giving tongue at once all except i have eaten good food he said to himself i have drunk good water nor does my throat burn and grow small as it did when i bit the blue spotted root that oo the said was clean food but my stomach is heavy and i have given very bad talk to and others people of the and my people now too i am hot and now i am cold and now i am neither hot nor cold but angry with that which i cannot see it is time to make a running tonight i will cross the yes i will make a spring running to the of the north and back again i have hunted too easily too long the four shall come with me for they grow as fat as white he called but never the four answered the spring running they were far beyond singing over the spring songs the moon and songs with the wolves of the pack for in the the people make very little difference between the day and the night he gave the sharp barking note but his only answer was the mocking of the little spotted tree cat winding in and out among the branches for early birds nests at this he shook all over with rage and half drew his knife then he became very haughty though there was no one to see him and stalked severely down the chin up and eyebrows down but never a single one of his people asked him a question for they were all too busy with their own affairs yes said to himself though in his heart he knew that he had no reason let the red come from the or the red flower dance among the and all the runs to calling him great elephant names but now because eye of the spring is red and must show his naked legs in some spring dance the goes mad as by the bull that bought me am i the master of the or am i not be silent what do ye here a couple of young wolves of the pack were the second book down a path looking for open ground in which to fight you will remember that the law of the fighting where the pack can see their neck were as stiff as wire and they furiously crouching for the first leaped forward caught one outstretched throat in either hand expecting to fling the creatures backward as he had often done in games or pack but he had never before interfered with a spring fight the two leaped forward and dashed him aside and without word to waste rolled over and over close locked was on his feet almost before he fell his knife and his white teeth were and at that minute he would have killed both for no reason but that they were fighting when he wished them to be quiet although every wolf has full right under the law to fight	39
he danced round them with lowered shoulders and quivering hand ready to send in a double blow when the first of the should be over but while he waited the strength seemed to ebb from his body the lowered and he the knife and watched i have surely eaten poison he sighed at last since i broke up the council with the the spring running red flower since i killed none of the pack could fling me aside and these be only tail wolves in the pack little hunters my strength is gone from me and presently i shall die oh why dost thou not kill them both the fight went on till one wolf ran away and was left alone on the torn and bloody ground looking now at his knife and now at his legs and arms while the feeling of he had never known before covered him as wa ter covers a log he killed early that evening and eat but little so as to be in good for his spring running and he eat alone because all the people were away singing or fighting it was a perfect white night as they call it all green things seemed to have made a month s growth since the morning the branch that was yellow the day before sap when broke it the curled deep and warm over his feet the young grass had no cutting edges and all the voices of the like one deep harp string touched by the moon the moon of new talk who her light full on rock and pool slipped it between trunk and and it through a million leaves the second book forgetting his sang aloud with pure delight as he settled into his stride it was more like flying than anything else for he had chosen the long downward slope that leads to the northern through the heart of the main where the ground the fall of his feet a man taught man would have picked his way with many through the moonlight but s muscles trained by years of experience bore him up as though he were a feather when a rotten log or a hidden stone turned under his foot he saved himself never checking his pace without effort and without thought when he tired of ground going he threw up his hands monkey fashion to the nearest and seemed to float rather than to climb up into the thin branches whence he would follow a till his mood changed and he shot downward in a long leafy curve to the again there were still hot hollows surrounded by wet rocks where he could hardly breathe for the heavy of the night flowers and the bloom along the dark avenues where the moonlight lay in as regular as in a church aisle where the wet young growth stood breast high about him and threw the spring running its arms round his waist and crowned with broken rock where he leaped from stone to stone above the of the frightened little he would hear very faint and far off the of a his on a and would come across the great gray brute all alone and the bark of a tall tree his mouth dripping with foam and his eyes blazing like fire or he would turn aside to the sound of horns and hissing and dash past a couple of furious staggering to and fro with lowered heads striped with blood that showed black in the moonlight or at some rushing ford he would hear the like a bull or disturb a knot of the poison people but before they could strike he would be away and across the glistening deep in the again so he ran sometimes shouting sometimes singing to himself the happiest thing in all the that night till the smell of the flowers warned him that he was near the and those lay far beyond his hunting grounds here again a man trained man would have sunk overhead in three strides but s feet had eyes in them and they passed him from to and to without ask the second book ing help from the eyes in his head he ran out to the middle of the swamp disturbing the duck as he ran and sat down on a moss tree trunk in the black water the marsh was awake all round him for in the spring the bird people sleep very lightly and companies of them were coming or going the night through but no one took any notice of sitting among the tall humming songs without words and looking at the of his hard brown feet in case of neglected thorns all his seemed to have been left behind in his own and he was just beginning a full throat song when it came back again ten times worse than before this time was frightened it is here also he said half aloud it has followed me and he looked over his shoulder to see whether the it were not standing behind him there is no one here the night noises of the marsh went on but never a bird or beast spoke to him and the new feeling of misery grew i have surely eaten poison he said in an awe stricken voice it must be that carelessly i have eaten poison and my strength is going from me i was afraid and yet it was not that was afraid was afraid when the two wolves fought or even would the spring running have silenced them yet was afraid that is true sign i have eaten poison but what do they care in the they sing and howl and fight and run in companies under the moon and i hat mat i am dying in the of that poison which i have eaten he was so sorry for himself that he nearly wept	39
and after he went on they will find me lying in the black water nay i will go back to my own and i will die upon the council rock and whom i love if he is not screaming in the valley perhaps may watch by what is left for a little lest use me as he used a large warm tear down on his knee and miserable as he was felt happy that he was so miserable if you can understand that down sort of happiness as the used he repeated on the night i saved the pack from red dog he was quiet for a little thinking of the last words of the lone wolf which you of course remember now said to me many foolish things before he died for when we die our change he said none the less i am of the in his excitement as he remembered the fight the second book on bank he shouted the last words aloud and a wild cow among the sprang to her knees man said the wild could hear him turn in his that is no man it is only the wolf of the pack on such nights runs he to and fro said the cow dropping her head again to i thought it was man i say no oh is it danger oh is it danger the boy called back that is all thinks for is it danger but for who goes to and fro in the by night what do ye care how loud he cries said the cow thus do they cry answered contemptuously who having torn up the grass know not how to eat it for less than this groaned to himself for less than this even last rains i had pricked out ol his and ridden him through the swamp on a rush he stretched a hand to break one of the but drew it back with a sigh went on the and the long grass the spring running where the cow i will not die he said angrily who is of one blood with and the pig would see me let us go beyond the swamp and see what comes never have i run such a spring running hot and cold together up he could not resist the temptation of stealing across the to and him with the point of his knife the great dripping bull broke out of his like a shell while laughed till he sat down say now that the wolf of the pack once thee he called wolf thou the bull stamping in the mud all the knows thou a of tame cattle such a man s as shouts in the dust by the crops yonder thou of the what hunter would have crawled like a snake among the and for a muddy jest a s jest have me before my cow come to firm ground and i will i will at the mouth for has nearly the worst temper of any one in the watched him puff and blow with eyes that never changed when he could make himself heard through the mud he said the second e book what man pack here by the this is new to me go north then roared the angry bull for had pricked him rather sharply it was a naked s jest go and tell them at the village at the foot of the marsh the man pack do not love tales nor do i think that a scratch more or less on thy hide is any matter for a council but i will go and look at this village yes i will go softly now it is not every night that the master of the comes to herd thee he stepped out to the shivering ground on the edge of the marsh well knowing that would never charge over it and laughed as he ran to think of the bull s anger my strength is not altogether gone he said it may be that the poison is not to the bone there is a star sitting low yonder he looked at it between his half shut hands by the bull that bought me it is the red flower the red flower that i lay beside before before i came even to the first pack now that i have seen i will finish the running the marsh ended in a broad plain where a light it was a long time since had concerned himself with the doings of men but the spring running this night the glimmer of the red flower drew him forward i will look said he as i did in the old days and i will see how far the man pack has changed forgetting that he was no longer in his own where he could do what he pleased he trod carelessly through the dew loaded till he came to the hut where the light stood three or four dogs gave tongue for he was on the outskirts of a village said sitting down noiselessly after sending back a deep wolf growl that silenced the what comes will come what hast thou to do any more with the of the man pack he rubbed his mouth remembering where a stone had struck it years ago when the other man pack had cast him out the door of the hut opened and a woman stood peering out into the darkness a child cried and the woman said over her shoulder sleep it was but a that the dogs in a little time morning comes in the grass began to shake as though he had fever he knew that voice well but to make sure he cried softly surprised to find how man s talk came back o o the second book who calls said the woman a quiver in her voice hast thou forgotten said his throat	39
was dry as he spoke if it be thou what name did i give thee say she had half shut the door and her hand was clutching at her breast oh said for as you remember that was the name gave him when he first came to the man pack come my son she called and stepped into the light and looked full at the woman who had been good to him and whose life he had saved from the man pack so long before she was older and her hair was gray but her eyes and her voice had not changed woman like she expected to find where she had left him and her eyes upward in a puzzled way from his chest to his head that touched the top of the door my son she stammered and then sinking to his feet but it is no longer my son it is a of the woods as he stood in the red light of the oil lamp strong tall and beautiful his long black hair sweeping over his shoulders the knife swinging at his neck and his head crowned with a wreath the spring running of white he might easily have been mistaken for some wild god of a legend the child half asleep on a cot sprang up and shrieked aloud with terror turned to soothe him while stood still looking in at the and the cooking pots the grain bin and all the other human that he found himself remembering so well what wilt thou eat or drink murmured this is all thine we owe our lives to thee but art thou him i called or a indeed i am said i am very far from my own place i saw this light and came hither i did not know thou here after we came to said timidly the english would have helped us against those villagers that sought to burn us thou indeed i have not forgotten but when the english law was made ready we went to the village of those evil people and it was no more to be found that also i remember said with a quiver of his my man therefore took service in the fields and at last for indeed he was a strong man o the second book we held a little land here it is not so rich as the old village but we do not need much we two where is he the man that dug in the dirt when he was afraid on that night he is dead a year and he pointed to the child my son that was born two rains ago if thou art a give him the favor of the that he may be safe among thy thy people as we were safe on that night she lifted up the child who forgetting his fright reached out to play with the knife that hung on s chest and put the little fingers aside very carefully and if thou art whom the carried away went on choking he is then thy younger brother give him an elder brother s blessing hai what do i know of the thing called a blessing i am neither a nor his brother and o mother mother my heart is heavy in me he shivered as he set down the child like enough said bustling among the cooking pots this comes of running about the by night beyond question the the spring running fever has soaked thee to the smiled a little at the idea of anything in the him i will make a fire and thou shalt drink warm milk put away the wreath the smell is heavy in so small a place sat down muttering with his face in his hands all manner of strange feelings that he had never felt before were running over him exactly as though he had been poisoned and he felt dizzy and a little sick he drank the warm milk in long patting him on the shoulder from time to time not quite sure whether he were her son of the long ago days or some wonderful being but glad to feel that he was at least flesh and blood son she said at last her eyes were full of pride have any told thee that thou art beautiful beyond all men said for naturally he had never heard anything of the kind laughed softly and happily the look in his face was enough for her i am the first then it is right though it comes seldom that a mother should tell her son these good things thou art very beautiful never have i looked upon such a man twisted his head and tried to see over io the second book his own hard shoulder and laughed again so long that not knowing why was forced to laugh with her and the child ran from one to the other laughing too nay thou must not mock thy brother said catching him to her breast when thou art one half as fair we will marry thee to the youngest daughter of a king and thou shalt ride great could not understand one word in three of the talk here the warm milk was taking effect on him after his long run so he curled up and in a minute was deep asleep and put the hair back from his eyes threw a cloth over him and was happy fashion he slept out the rest of that night and all the next day for his instincts which never wholly slept warned him there was nothing to fear he at last with a bound that shook the hut for the cloth over his face made him dream of traps and there he stood his hand on his knife the sleep all heavy in his rolling eyes ready for any fight laughed and set the	39
evening meal before him there were only a few coarse cakes baked over the smoky fire some rice and a lump of sour preserved just enough to go the spring running on with till he could get to his evening kill the smell of the dew in the made him hungry and restless he wanted to finish his spring running but the child insisted on sitting in his arms and would have it that his long blue black hair must be out so she sang as she foolish little baby songs now calling her son and now begging him to give some of his power to the child the hut door was closed but heard a sound he knew well and saw s jaw drop with horror as a great gray came under the bottom of the door and gray brother outside a muffled and penitent of anxiety and fear out and wait ye would not come when i called said in talk without turning his head and the great gray disappeared do not do not bring thy thy servants with thee said i we have always lived at peace with the it is peace said rising think of that night on the road to there were scores of such folk before thee and behind thee but i see that even in the people do not always forget mother i go the second book drew aside humbly he was indeed a wood god she thought but as his hand was on the door the mother in her made her throw her arms round s neck again and again come back she whispered son or no son come back for i love thee look he too the child was crying because the man with the shiny knife was going away come back again repeated by night or by day this door is never shut to thee s throat worked as though the in it were being pulled and his voice seemed to be dragged from it as he answered i will surely come back and now he said as he put by the head of the wolf on the threshold i have a little cry against thee gray brother why came ye not all four when i called so long ago so long ago it was but last night i we were singing in the the new songs for this is the time of new talk thou truly truly and as soon as the songs were sung gray brother went on earnestly i followed thy trail the spring running i ran from all the others and followed hot foot but o little brother what hast thou done eating and sleeping with the man pack if ye had come when i called this had never been said running much faster and now what is to be said gray brother was just going to answer when a girl in a white cloth came down some path that led from the outskirts of the village gray brother dropped out of sight at once and backed noiselessly into a field of high springing crops he could almost have touched her with his hand when the warm green closed before his face and he disappeared like a ghost the girl screamed for she thought she had seen a spirit and then she gave a deep sigh parted the with his hands and watched her till she was out of sight and now i do not know he said sighing in his turn why did ye not come when i called we follow thee we follow thee gray brother at s heel we follow thee always except in the time of the new talk and would ye follow me to the man pack whispered did i not follow thee on the night our old the second book pack cast thee out who thee lying among the crops ay but again have i not followed thee to night ay but again and again and it may be again gray brother gray brother was silent when he spoke he growled to himself the black one spoke truth and he said man goes to man at the last our mother said so also said on the night of red dog muttered so also says who is wiser than us all what dost thou say gray brother they cast thee out once with bad talk they cut thy mouth with stones they sent to thee they would have thrown thee into the red flower thou and not i hast said that they are evil and senseless thou and not i i follow my own people let in the upon them thou and not i make song against them more bitter even than our song against red dog i ask thee what say est they were talking as they ran gray brother on a while without replying and then the spring running he said between bound and bound as it were man master of the son of brother to me though i forget for a little while in the spring thy trail is my trail thy is my thy kill is my kill and thy death fight is my death fight i speak for the three but what wilt thou say to the that is well thought between the sight and the kill it is not good to wait go before and cry them all to the council rock and i will tell them what is in my stomach but they may not come in the time of new talk they may forget me hast thou then forgotten nothing snapped gray brother over his shoulder as he laid himself down to gallop and followed thinking at any other season the news would have called all the together with necks but now they were busy hunting and fighting and killing and singing from one to	39
he which is by far the oldest law in the world has arranged for almost every kind of accident that may befall the people till now its code is as perfect as time and custom can make it if you have read the other book about you will remember that he spent a great part of his life in the wolf pack learning the law from the brown bear and it was who told him when the boy grew impatient at the constant orders that the law was like the giant the second book because it dropped across every one s back and no one could escape when thou hast lived as long as i have little brother thou wilt see how all the at least one law and that will be no pleasant sight said this talk went in at one ear and out at the other for a boy who his life eating and sleeping does not worry about anything till it actually him in the face but one year s words came true and saw all the working under the law it began when the winter rains failed almost entirely and the meeting in a thicket told him that the wild were drying up now everybody knows that is fastidious in his choice of food and will eat nothing but the very best and so laughed and said what is that to me not much now said rattling his in a stiff uncomfortable way but later we shall see is there any more into the deep rock pool below the bee rocks little brother no the foolish water is going all away and i do not wish to break my head said who in those days was quite sure that how fear came he knew as much as any five of the people put together that is thy loss a small crack might let in some wisdom quickly to prevent fi om pulling his nose and told what had said looked very grave and half to himself if i were alone i would change my hunting grounds now before the others began to think and yet hunting among strangers ends in fighting and they might hurt the man we must wait and see how the that spring the tree that was so fond of never the blossoms were heat killed before they were born and only a few bad smelling came down when he stood on his hind legs and shook the tree then inch by inch the heat crept into the heart of the turning it yellow brown and at last black the green in the sides of the burned up to broken wires and curled of dead stuff the hidden pools sank down and over keeping the last least on their edges as if it had been cast in iron the fell away from the trees they clung to and died at their feet the the second book withered when the hot winds blew and the moss off the rocks deep in the till they were as bare and as hot as the quivering blue in the bed of the stream the birds and the monkey people went north early in the year for they knew what was coming and the deer and the wild pig broke far away to the perished fields of the villages dying sometimes before the eyes of men too weak to kill them the stayed and grew fat for there was a great deal of and evening after evening he brought the news to the beasts too weak to force their way to fresh hunting grounds that the sun was killing the for three days flight in every direction who had never known what real hunger meant fell back on stale honey three years old scraped out of deserted rock honey black as a and dusty with dried sugar he hunted too for deep under the bark of the trees and robbed the of their new all the game in the was no more than skin and bone and could kill thrice in a night and hardly get a full meal but the want of water was the worst for though the people drink seldom they must drink deep how fear came s and the heat went on and on and sucked up all the moisture till at last the main channel of the was the only stream that carried a of water between its dead banks and the wild elephant who lives for a hundred years and more saw a long lean blue ridge of rock show dry in the very of the stream he knew that he was looking at the peace rock and then and there he lifted up his trunk and proclaimed the water as his father before him had proclaimed it fifty years ago the deer wild pig and took up the cry hoarsely and the flew in great circles far and wide whistling and shrieking the warning by the law of the it is death to kill at the drinking places when once the water has been declared the reason of this is that drinking comes before eating every one in the can scramble along somehow when only game is scarce but water is water and when there is but one source of supply all hunting stops while the people go there for their needs in good seasons when water was plentiful those who came down to drink at the or anywhere else for that matter did so at the risk of their lives and that risk made no small part of the fascination of the night s doings to move the second book down so that never a leaf stirred to knee deep in the roaring that drown all noise from behind to drink looking backward over one shoulder every muscle ready for the first desperate bound of keen terror to roll on the sandy margin and	39
return wet and well out to the admiring herd was a thing that all tall young took a delight in precisely because they knew that at any moment or might leap upon them and bear them down but now all that life and death fun was ended and the people came up starved and weary to the river tiger bear deer and pig all together drank the waters and hung above them too exhausted to move off the deer and the pig had all day in search of something better than dried bark and withered leaves the had found no to be cool in and no green crops to steal the had left the and come down to the river in the hope of finding a stray they curled round wet stones and never offered to strike when the nose of a pig them the river had long ago been killed by of hunters and the fish had buried themselves deep in the dry mud how fear came only the peace rock lay across the like a long snake and the little tired as they dried on its hot side it was here that came nightly for the cool and the companionship the most hungry of his enemies would hardly have cared for the boy then his naked hide made him seem more lean and wretched than any of his fellows his hair was to tow color by the sun his ribs stood out like the ribs of a basket and the on his knees and elbows where he was used to track on all gave his limbs the look of knotted grass stems but his eye under his was cool and quiet for was his adviser in this time of trouble and told him to go quietly hunt slowly and never on any account to lose his temper it is an evil time said the black one furnace hot evening but it will go if we can live till the end is thy stomach full man there is stuff in my stomach but i get no good of it think you the rains have forgotten us and will never come again not i we shall see the in blossom yet and the little all fat with new grass come down to the peace rock and hear the news on my back little brother the second book this is no time to carry weight i can still stand alone but indeed we be no we too looked along his ragged dusty flank and whispered last night i killed a under the yoke so low was i brought that i think i should not have dared to spring if he had been loose i laughed yes we be great hunters now said he i am very bold to eat and the two came down together through the to the river bank and the lace work of that ran out from it in every direction the water cannot live long said joining them look across yonder are like the roads of man on the level plain of the further bank the stiff grass had died standing and dying had the beaten tracks of the deer and the pig all heading toward the river had striped that plain with dusty driven through the ten foot grass and early as it was each long avenue was full of first comers hastening to the water you could hear the does and in the like dust up stream at the bend of the pool how fear came round the peace rock and of the water stood the wild elephant with his sons gaunt and gray in the rocking to and fro always rocking below him a little were the of the deer below these again the pig and the wild and on the opposite bank where the tall trees came down to the water s edge was the place set apart for the of flesh the tiger the wolves the and the bear and the others we are under one law indeed said into the water and looking across at the lines of horns and starting eyes where the deer and the pig pushed each other to and fro good hunting all you of my blood he added lying down at full length one flank thrust out of the and then between his teeth but for that which is the law it would be very good hunting the quick spread ears of the deer caught the last sentence and a frightened whisper ran along the ranks the remember the peace there peace the wild elephant the holds this is no time to talk of hunting who should know better than i answered rolling his yellow eyes up stream i lo the second book am an of a of would i could get good from branches we wish so very greatly a young who had only been born that spring and did not at all like it wretched as the people were even could not help while lying on his elbows in the warm water laughed aloud and beat up the with his feet well spoken little bud horn when the ends that shall be remembered in thy favor and he looked keenly through the darkness to make sure of the again gradually the talking spread up and down the drinking places one could hear the pig asking for more room the among themselves as they out across the sand bars and the deer telling pitiful stories of their long foot sore wanderings in quest of food now and again they asked some question of the of flesh across the river but all the news was bad and the roaring hot wind of the came and went between the rocks and the rattling branches and scattered twigs and dust on the water how fear came ii the men folk too they die beside their said a young i passed three	39
between sunset and night they lay still and their with them we also shall lie still in a the river has fallen since last night said o hast thou ever seen the like of this it will pass it will pass said water along his back and sides we have one here that cannot endure long said and he looked toward the boy he loved i said indignantly sitting up in the water i have no long fur to cover my bones but but if thy hide were taken off shook all over at the idea and said severely man that is not to tell a teacher of the law never have i been seen without my hide nay i meant no harm but only that thou art as it were like the in the and i am the same all naked now that brown of thine was sitting cross legged and explaining things with his fore the second book finger in his usual way when out out a and pulled him over backward into the water worse and worse said the black as the boy rose first is to be and now he is a be careful that he does not do what the ripe do and what is that said off his guard for the minute though that is one of the oldest catches in the break thy head said quietly pulling him under again it is not good to make a jest of thy teacher said the bear when had been for the third time not good what would ye have that naked thing running to and fro makes a of those who have once been good hunters and the best of us by the for sport this was the lame tiger down to the water he waited a little to enjoy the sensation he made among the deer on the opposite bank then he dropped his square head and began to lap growling the has become a ground for naked now look at me man looked stared rather as how fear came as he knew how and in a minute turned away uneasily man this and that he going on with his drink the is neither man nor or he would have been afraid next season i shall have to beg his leave for a drink that may come too said looking him steadily between the eyes that may come too what new shame hast thou brought here the lame tiger had dipped his chin and in the water and dark streaks were floating from it down stream man said coolly i killed an hour since he went on and growling to himself the line of beasts shook and wavered to and fro and a whisper went up that grew to a cry man man he has killed man then all looked toward the wild elephant but he seemed not to hear never does anything till the time comes and that is one of the reasons why he lives so long at such a season as this to kill man was no other game said scornfully drawing himself out of the water and shaking each cat fashion as he did so the second book i killed for choice not for food the whisper began again and s watchful little white eye cocked itself in s direction for choice now come i to drink and make me clean again is there any to forbid s back began to curve like a in a high wind but lifted up his trunk and spoke quietly thy kill was from choice he asked and when asks a question it is best to answer even so it was my right and my night thou o spoke almost courteously yes i know answered and after a little silence hast thou drunk thy fill for to night yes go then the river is to drink and not to none but the lame tiger would so have boasted of his right at this season when when we suffer together man and people alike clean or get to thy the last words rang out like silver trumpets and s three sons rolled forward half a pace though there was no need away not daring to growl for he knew what how fear came every one else knows that when the last comes to the last is the master of the what is this right speaks of whispered in ear to kill man is always shameful the law says so and yet says ask him i do not know little brother right or no right if had not spoken i would have taught that lame butcher his lesson to come to the peace rock fresh from a kill of man and to boast of it is a s trick besides he the good water waited for a minute to pick up his courage because no one cared to address directly and then he cried what is s right o both banks echoed his words for all the people of the are intensely curious and they had just seen something that none except who looked very thoughtful seemed to understand it is an old tale said a tale older than the keep silence along the banks and i will tell that tale there was a minute or two of pushing and among the pigs and the and then the leaders of the herds one after another we wait and strode forward i the second book till he was nearly knee deep in the pool by the peace rock lean and wrinkled and though he was he looked what the knew him to be their master ye know children he began that of all things ye most fear man and there was a of agreement this tale touches thee little brother said to i i am of the pack a hunter	39
of the free people answered what have i to do with man and ye do not know why ye fear man went on this is the reason in the beginning of the and none know when that was we of the walked together having no fear of one another in those days there was no and leaves and flowers and fruit grew on the same tree and we ate nothing at all except leaves and flowers and grass and fruit and bark i am glad i was not born in those days said bark is only good to claws and the lord of the was tha the first of the he drew the out of deep waters with his trunk and where he how fear came made in the ground with his there the rivers ran and where he struck with his foot there rose of good water and when he blew through his trunk thus the trees fell that was the manner in which the was made by tha and so the tale was told to me it has not lost fat in the telling whispered and laughed behind his hand in those days there was no corn or or or sugar cane nor were there any little huts such as ye have all seen and the people knew nothing of man but lived in the together making one people but presently they began to dispute over their food though there was enough for all they were lazy each wished to eat where he lay down as sometimes we can do now when the spring rains are good tha the first of the was busy making new and leading the rivers in their beds he could not walk in all places therefore he made the first of the the master and the judge of the to whom the people should bring their in those days the first of the ate fruit and grass with the others he was as large as i am and he was very beautiful in color all over like the blossom of the yellow there was the second book never nor bar upon his hide in those good days when this the was new all the people came before him without fear and his word was the law of all the we were then remember ye one people yet upon a night there was a dispute between two a quarrel such as ye now settle with the horns and the fore feet and it is said that as the two spoke together before the first of the lying among the flowers a buck pushed him with his horns and the first of the forgot that he was the master and judge of the and leaping upon that buck broke his neck till that night never one of us had died and the first of the seeing what he had done and being made foolish by the scent of the blood ran away into the of the north and we of the left without a judge fell to fighting among ourselves and tha heard the noise of it and came back then some of us said this and some of us said that but he saw the dead buck among the flowers and asked who had killed and we of the would not tell because the smell of the blood made us foolish we ran to and fro in circles and crying out and shaking our heads then tha gave an order to how fear came the trees that hang low and to the trailing of the that they should mark the of the buck so that he should know him again and he said who will now be master of the people then up leaped the gray who lives in the branches and said i will now be master of the at this tha laughed and said so be it and went away very angry children ye know the gray he was then as he is now at the first he made a wise face for himself but in a little while he began to scratch and to leap up and down and when tha came back he found the gray hanging head down from a bough mocking those who stood below and they him again and so there was no law in the only foolish talk and senseless words then tha called us all together and said the first of your masters has brought death into the and the second shame now it is time there was a law and a law that ye must not break now ye shall know fear and when ye have found him ye shall know that he is your master and the rest shall follow then we of the said what is fear and tha said seek till ye find so we went up and the second book down the seeking for fear and presently the said the leader of the from their sand bank yes it was the they came back with the news that in a cave in the sat fear and that he had no hair and went upon his hind legs then we of the followed the herd till we came to that cave and fear stood at the mouth of it and he was as the had said and he walked upon his hinder legs when he saw us he cried out and his voice filled us with the fear that we have now of that voice when we hear it and we ran away upon and tearing each other because we were afraid that night so it was told to me we of the did not lie down together as used to be our custom but each tribe drew off by itself the pig with the pig the deer with the deer horn to horn to like keeping to like and so lay shaking	39
he will not take away my night and tha said the one night is thine as i have said but there is a price to pay thou hast taught man to kill and he is no slow the first of the said he is here under my foot and his back is broken let the know i have killed fear then tha laughed and said thou hast killed one of many but thou shalt tell the for thy night is ended so the day came and from the mouth of the cave went out another one and he saw the kill in the path and the first of the above it and he took a pointed stick they throw a thing that cuts now said rustling down the bank for was considered uncommonly good eating by the they called him ho and he knew something of the wicked little axe that across a clearing like a fly it was a pointed stick such as they put in the foot of a pit trap said and throwing it he struck the first of the deep in the flank thus it happened as tha said for the first of the ran howling up and down the till he tore out the stick and all the the second book knew that the one could strike from far off and they feared more than before so it came about that the first of the taught the one to kill and ye know what harm that has since done to all our through the and the and the hidden trap and the flying stick and the fly that comes out of white smoke meant the rifle and the red flower that drives us into the open yet for one night in the year the one fears the tiger as tha promised and never has the tiger given him cause to be less afraid where he finds him there he him remembering how the first of the was made ashamed for the rest fear walks up and down the by day and by night r said the deer thinking of what it all meant to them and only when there is one great fear over all as there is now can we of the lay aside our little fears and meet together in one place as we do now for one night only does man fear the tiger said for one night only said but i but we but all the knows that man twice and thrice in a moon how fear came even so then he springs from behind and turns his head aside as he strikes for he is full of fear if man looked at him he would run but on his one night he goes openly down to the village he walks between the houses and his head into the doorway and the men fall on their faces and there he does his kill one kill in that night oh said to himself rolling over in the water now i see why it was bade me look at him he got no good of it for he could not hold his eyes steady and and i certainly did not fall down at his feet but then i am not a man being of the free people said deep in his throat does the tiger know his night never till the of the moon stands clear of the evening mist sometimes it falls in the dry summer and sometimes in the wet rains this one night of the tiger but for the first of the this would never have been nor would any of us have known fear the deer sorrowfully and s lips curled in a wicked smile do men know this tale said he none know it except the and we the the second book the children of tha now ye by the pools have heard it and i have spoken dipped his trunk into the water as a sign that he did not wish to talk but but but said turning to why did not the first of the continue to eat grass and leaves and trees he did but break the buck s neck he did not eat what led him to the hot meat the trees and the marked him little brother and made him the striped thing that we see never again would he eat their fruit but from that day he himself upon the deer and the others the of grass said then thou the tale why have i never heard because the is full of such tales if made a beginning there would never be an end to them let go my ear little brother the law of the to give you an idea of the immense variety of the law i have translated into verse always them in a sort of sing song a few of the laws that apply to the wolves there are of course hundreds and hundreds more but these will do for specimens of the now this is the law of the as old and as true as the sky and the wolf that shall keep it may prosper but the wolf that shall break it must die as the that the tree trunk the law forward and back for the strength of the pack is the wolf and the strength of the wolf is the pack the second book wash daily from nose tip to tail tip drink deeply but never too deep and remember the night is for hunting and forget not the day is for sleep the may follow the tiger but when thy whiskers are grown remember the wolf is a hunter go forth and get food of thine own keep peace with the lords of the the tiger the the bear and trouble not the silent	39
the himself made a special visit to confer upon the the grand the second book cross of the star of india all diamonds and ribbons and and at the same ceremony while the cannon was made a knight commander of the order of the indian empire so that his name stood sir k c i e that evening at dinner in the big tent he stood up with the and the collar of the order on his breast and replying to the toast of his master s health made a speech few englishmen could have next month when the city had returned to its quiet he did a thing no englishman would have dreamed of doing for so far as the world s affairs went he died the order of his went back to the indian government and a new prime minister was appointed to the charge of affairs and a great game of general post began in all the subordinate the priests knew what had happened and the people guessed but india is the one place in the world where a man can do as he pleases and nobody asks why and the fact that sir k c i e had resigned position palace and power and taken up the begging bowl and colored dress of a or holy man was considered nothing extra the miracle of ordinary he had been as the old law twenty years a youth twenty years a though he had never carried a weapon in his hfe and twenty years head of a household he had used his wealth and his power for what he knew both to be worth he had taken honor w hen it came his way he had seen men and cities far and near and men and cities had stood up and honored him now he would let these things go as a man drops the cloak he no longer needs behind him as he walked through the city gates an skin and brass handled under his arm and a begging bowl of polished brown de his hand alone with eyes cast on the ground behind him they were firing from the in honor of his happy successor nodded all that life was ended and he bore it no more ill will or good will than a man bears to a dream of the night he was a a wandering depending on his neighbors for his daily bread and so long as there is a morsel to divide in india neither priest nor beggar he had never in his life tasted meat and very seldom eaten even fish a five pound note would have covered his personal expenses the second book for food through any one of the many years in which he had been absolute master of millions of money even when he was being in london he had held before him his dream of peace and quiet the long white dusty indian road printed all over with bare feet the incessant slow moving traffic and the sharp smelling wood smoke curling up under the fig trees in the twilight where the sit at their evening meal when the time came to make that dream true the prime minister took the proper steps and in three days you might more easily have found a in the of the long atlantic seas than among the gathering separating millions of india at night his skin was spread where the darkness overtook him sometimes in a by the roadside sometimes by a mud pillar shrine of where the who are another misty division of holy men would receive him as they do those who know what and divisions are worth sometimes on the outskirts of a little village where the children would steal up with the food their parents had prepared and sometimes on the pitch of the bare grounds where the flame of his stick fire the miracle of the drowsy it was all one to or as he called himself now earth people and food were all one but unconsciously his feet drew him away northward and eastward from the south to from to from to ruined and then up stream along the dried bed of the river that fills only when the rain falls in the hills till one day he saw the far line of the great then smiled for he remembered that his mother was of birth from way a hill woman always for the and that the least touch of hill blood draws a man at the end back to where he belongs yonder said the lower slopes of the where the stand up like seven yonder i shall sit down and get knowledge and the cool wind of the whistled about his ears as he trod the road that led to the last time he had come that way it had been in state with a cavalry escort to visit the and most of and the two had talked for an hour together about mutual friends in london and what the in the second book common folk really thought of things this time paid no calls but leaned on the rail of the watching that glorious view of the plains spread out forty miles below till a native policeman told him he was traffic and re y to th e law because he knew the value of it and was seeking for a law of his own then he moved on and slept that night in an empty hut at which looks like the very last end of the earth but it was only the beginning of his journey he followed the road the little ten foot track that is out of solid the miracle of rock or out on over a thousand feet deep that into warm wet shut in valleys and out across bare grassy hill shoulders where the sun strikes	39
like a burning glass or turns through dripping dark forests where the tree dress the trunks from head to heel and the calls to his mate and he met with their dogs and flocks of sheep each sheep with a little bag of on his back and wandering wood and and from coming into india on pilgrimage and of little solitary hill states furiously on ring and or the of a paying a visit or else for a long clear day he would see nothing more than a black bear and below in the valley when he first started the roar of the world he had left still rang in his ears as the roar of a rings long after the train has passed through but when he had put the pass behind him that was all done and was alone with himself walking wondering and thinking his eyes on the ground and his thoughts with the clouds one evening he crossed the highest pass he had met till then it had been a two days climb the second book and came out on a line of snow peaks that all the horizon mountains from fifteen to twenty thousand feet high looking almost near enough to hit with a stone though they were fifty or sixty miles away the pass was crowned with dense dark forest wild cherry wild olive and wild but mostly which is the and under the shadow of the stood a deserted shrine to who is who is who is sometimes against the swept the stone floor clean smiled at the grinning statue made himself a little mud fireplace at the back of the shrine spread his skin on a bed of fresh pine needles tucked his his brass handled under his and sat down to rest immediately below him the fell away clean and cleared for fifteen hundred feet where a little village of stone walled houses with roofs of beaten earth clung to the steep all round it the tiny fields lay out like of on the knees of the mountain and cows no bigger than between the smooth stone circles of the floors looking across the valley the eye was deceived by the size of things and could not at first realize that the miracle of what seemed to be low on the opposite mountain flank was in truth a forest of pines saw an eagle across the gigantic hollow but the great bird to a dot ere it was half way over a few bands of scattered clouds strung up and down the valley catching on a shoulder of the hills or rising up and dying out when they were level with the head of the pass and here shall i find peace said now a hill man makes nothing of a few hundred feet up or down and as soon as the villagers saw the smoke in the deserted shrine the village priest climbed up the to welcome the stranger when he met s eyes the eyes of a man used to control thousands he bowed to the earth took the begging bowl without a word and returned to the village saying we have at last a holy man never have i seen such a man he is of the plains but pale colored a of the then all the of the village said think you he will stay with us and each did her best to cook the most meal for the hill food is very simple but with and indian corn and rice and red and little fish out the second book of the stream in the valley and honey from the like built in the stone walls and dried and and wild and of flour a devout woman can make good things and it was a full bowl that the priest carried to the was he going to stay asked the priest would he need a a to beg for him had he a blanket against the cold weather was the food good ate and thanked the it was in his mind to stay that was sufficient said the priest let the begging bowl be placed outside the shrine in the hollow made by those two twisted roots and daily should the be fed for the village felt honored that such a man he looked timidly into the s face should among them that day saw the end of s wanderings he had come to the place appointed for him the silence and the space after this time stopped and he sitting at the mouth of the shrine could not tell whether he were alive or dead a man with control of his limbs or a part of the hills and the clouds and the shifting rain and sunlight he would repeat a name softly to himself a hundred hundred times till at each repetition he seemed to move more and more out of his body sweeping up to the doors of some the miracle of tremendous discovery but just as the door was opening his body would drag him back and with grief he felt he was locked up again in the flesh and bones of every morning the filled begging bowl was laid silently in the of the roots outside the shrine sometimes the priest brought it sometimes a lodging in the village and anxious to get merit up the path but more often it was the woman who had cooked the meal and she would murmur hardly above her breath speak for me before the gods speak for such a one the wife of so and so now and then some bold child would be allowed the honor and would hear him drop the bowl and run as fast as his little legs could carry him but the never came down to the village it was laid out like	39
they fled through the little river at the bottom and panted up the fields on the far side while the and his brethren followed up and up the opposite mountain they climbed calling to each other by name the roll call of the village and at their heels toiled the big by the failing strength of at last the deer stopped in the shadow of a deep pine wood five hundred feet up the his instinct that had warned him of the coming slide told him he would be safe here the second book dropped fainting by his side for the chill of the rain and that fierce climb were killing him but first he called to the scattered ahead stay and count your numbers then whispering to the deer as he saw the lights gather in a cluster stay with me brother i go there was a sigh in the air that grew to a and a that grew to a roar and a roar that passed all sense of hearing and the on which the villagers stood was hit in the darkness and rocked to the blow then a note as steady deep and true as the deep c of the organ drowned everything for perhaps five minutes while the very roots of the pines quivered to it it died away and the sound of the rain falling on miles of hard ground and grass changed to the muffled drum of water on soft earth that told its own tale never a not even the priest was bold enough to speak to the who had saved their lives they crouched under the pines and waited till the day when it came they looked across the valley and saw that what had been forest and field and ground was one raw red with a few trees flung head down the miracle of on the that red ran high up the hill of their refuge back the little river which had begun to spread into a brick colored lake of the village of the road to the shrine of the shrine itself and the forest behind there was not trace for one mile in width and two thousand feet in sheer depth the mountain side had come away bodily clean from head to heel and the villagers one by one crept through the wood to pray before their they saw the standing over him who fled when they came near and they heard the wailing in the branches and moaning up the hill but their was dead sitting his back against a tree his under his and his face turned to the the priest said behold a miracle after a miracle for in this very attitude must all be buried therefore where he now is we will build the temple to our holy man they built the temple before a year was ended a little stone and earth shrine and they called the hill the s hill and they worship there with lights and flowers and to this day but they do not know that the saint of their worship is the late sir k c i e d c l d etc once prime minister of the o the second book and enlightened state of and or corresponding member of more learned and scientific societies than will ever do any good in this world or the next a song of was the world that he weighed in his hands oh heavy the tale of his and his lands he has gone from the and put on the and departed in guise of now the white road to is mat for his feet the and the must guard him from heat his home is the camp and the waste and the crowd he is seeking the way as he has looked upon man and his are clear there was one there is one and but one the red mist of doing has to a cloud he has taken the path to learn and discern of his brother the of his brother the brute and his brother the god he has gone from the council and put on the can ye hear a letting in the veil them cover them wall them rounds blossom and and weed let us forget the sight and the sound the smell and the touch of the breed fat black ash by the altar stone here is the white foot rain and the does bring forth in the fields and none shall them again and the blind walls unknown and none shall again letting in the ou will remember if you have read the tales in the first book that after had pinned s hide to the council rock he told as many as were left of the pack that he would hunt in the alone and the four children of mother and father wolf said that they would hunt with him but it is not easy to change one s life all in a minute particularly in the the first thing did when the pack had off was to go to the home cave and sleep the second book for a day and a night then he told mother wolf and father wolf as much as they could understand of his adventures among men and when he made the morning sun up and down the blade of his knife the same he had with they said he had learned something then and gray brother had to explain their share of the great drive in the and toiled up the hill to hear all about it and scratched himself all over with pure delight at the way in which had managed his war it was long after sunrise but no one dreamed of going to sleep and from time to time during the talk mother wolf would throw up her head and a	39
deep snuff of satisfaction as the wind brought her the smell of the tiger skin on the council rock but for and gray brother here said at the end i could have done nothing oh mother mother if thou seen the black herd pour down the or hurry through the gates when the man pack flung stones at me i am glad i did not see that last said mother wolf stiffly it is not my custom to suffer my to be driven to and fro like letting in the would have taken a price from the man pack but i would have spared the woman who gave thee the milk yes i would have spared her alone peace peace said father wolf lazily our has come back again so wise that his own father must his feet and what is a cut more or less on the head leave men alone and both echoed leave men alone his head on mother wolf s side smiled and said that for his own part he never wished to see or hear or smell man again but what said one ear but what if men do not leave thee alone little brother said gray brother looking round at the company and snapping his jaws on the last word we also might attend to that hunting said with a little of his tail looking at but why think of men now for this reason the lone wolf answered when that yellow thief s hide was hung up on the rock i went back along our trail to the village stepping in my tracks turning aside and the second book lying down to make a mixed trail in case one should follow us but when i had the trail so that i myself hardly knew it again the bat came between the trees and hung up above me said the village of the man pack where they cast out the man like a s nest it was a big stone that i threw chuckled who had often amused himself by throwing ripe into a s nest and racing off to the nearest pool before the caught him i asked of what he had seen he said the red flower at the gate of the village and men sat about it carrying guns now know for i have good cause looked down at the old dry on his flank and side that men do not carry guns for pleasure presently little brother a man with a gun follows our trail if indeed he be not already on it but why should he men have cast me out what more do they need said angrily thou art a man little brother returned it is not for the free hunters to tell thee what thy brethren do or why he had just time to snatch up his as the knife cut deep into the ground below letting in the struck quicker than an average human eye could follow but was a wolf and even a dog who is very far removed from the wild wolf his can be out of deep sleep by a cart wheel touching his flank and can spring away before that wheel comes on another time said quietly returning the knife to its speak of the man pack and of in two not one that is a sharp tooth said at the blade s cut in the earth but living with the man pack has spoiled thine eye little brother i could have killed a buck while thou striking sprang to his feet thrust up his head as far as he could and through every curve in his body gray brother followed his example quickly keeping a little to his left to get the wind that was blowing from the right while bounded fifty yards up wind and half crouching too looked on he could smell things as very few human beings could but he had never reached the hair like of a nose and his three months in the smoky village had set him back sadly however he his finger rubbed it on his nose and stood erect the second book to catch the upper scent which though it is the faintest is the truest man growled dropping on his said sitting down he follows our trail and yonder is the sunlight on his gun look it was no more than a splash of sunlight for a of a second on the brass of the old tower but nothing in the with just that flash except when the clouds race over the sky then a piece of or a little pool or even a highly polished leaf will flash like a but that day was and still i knew men would follow said triumphantly not for nothing have i led the pack the four said nothing but ran down hill on their melting into the thorn and as a into a lawn where go ye and without word called h sh we roll his skull here before midday gray brother answered back back and wait man does not eat man shrieked who was a wolf but now who drove the letting in the knife at me for thinking he might be man said as the four wolves turned back sullenly and dropped to heel am i to give a reason for all i choose to do said furiously that is man there speaks man muttered under his whiskers even so did men talk round the king s at we of the know that man is wisest of all if we trusted our ears we should know that of all things he is most foolish raising his voice he added the man is right in this men hunt in to kill one unless we know what the others will do is bad hunting come let us see what this man means toward us we will not come	39
gray brother growled hunt alone little brother we know our own minds that skull would have been ready to bring by now had been looking from one to the other of his friends his chest heaving and his eyes full of tears he strode forward to the wolves and dropping on one knee said do i not know my mind look at me they looked uneasily and when their eyes wandered he called them back again and again the second book till their hair stood up all over their bodies and they trembled in every limb while stared and stared now said he of us five which is leader thou art leader little brother said gray brother and he licked s foot follow then said and the four followed at his heels with their tails between their legs this comes of living with the man pack said slipping down after them there is more in the now than law the old bear said nothing but he thought many things cut across noiselessly through the at right angles to s path till parting the he saw the old man his on his shoulder running up the trail of at a dog trot you will remember that had left the village with the heavy weight of s raw hide on his shoulders while and gray brother trotted behind so that the triple trail was very clearly marked presently came to where as you know had gone back and mixed it all up then he sat down and and and made little casts round and about letting in the into the to pick it up again and all the time he could have thrown a stone over those who were watching him no one can be so silent as a wolf when he does not care to be heard and though the wolves thought he moved very could come and go like a shadow they the old man as a school of ring a steamer at full speed and as they him they talked for their speech began below the lowest end of the scale that human beings can hear the other end is bounded by the high of the bat which very many people cannot catch at all from that note all the bird and bat and insect talk takes on this is any kill said gray brother as stooped and peered and puffed he looks like a lost pig in the by the river what does he say was muttering savagely translated he says that of wolves must have danced round me he says that he never saw such a trail in his life he says he is tired he will be rested before he it up again said coolly as he slipped round a in the game of s that they the second book were playing what does the lean thing do eat or blow smoke out of his mouth men always play with their mouths said and the silent saw the old man fill and light and puff at a water pipe and they took good note of the smell of the tobacco so as to be sure of in the darkest night if necessary then a little knot of came down the path and naturally halted to speak to whose fame as a hunter reached for at least twenty miles round they all sat down and smoked and and the others came up and watched while began to tell the story of the devil child from one end to another with additions and inventions how he himself had really killed and how had turned himself into a wolf and fought with him all the afternoon and changed into a boy again and s rifle so that the bullet turned the corner when he pointed it at and killed one of s own and how the village knowing him to be the hunter in had sent him out to kill this devil child but meantime the village had got hold of and her husband who were undoubtedly the father and mother of this devil letting in the child and had them in their own hut and presently would torture them to make them confess they were witch and and then they would be burned to death when said the because they would very much like to be present at the ceremony said that nothing would be done till he returned because the village wished him to kill the boy first after that they would dispose of and her husband and divide their lands and among the village s husband had some remarkably fine too it was an excellent thing to destroy thought and people who entertained out of the were clearly the worst kind of but said the what would happen if the english heard of it the english they had heard were a perfectly mad people who would not let honest farmers kill in peace why said the head man of the village would report that and her husband had died of snake bite that was all arranged and the only thing now was to kill the wolf child they did not happen to have seen anything of such a creature the second book the looked round cautiously and thanked their stars they had not but they had no doubt that so brave a man as would find him if any one could the sun was getting rather low and they had an idea that they would push on to s village and see that wicked witch said that though it was his duty to kill the devil child he could not think of letting a party of men go through the which might produce the wolf demon at any minute without his escort he therefore would accompany them and if the s child appeared well he would show them how the best hunter in dealt with such things the he said had given him a charm	39
hard and groaning her husband was tied to the gaily painted the door of the hut that opened into the street was shut fast and three or four people were sitting with their backs to it knew the manners and customs of the villagers very fairly he argued that so long as they could eat and talk and smoke they would not do anything else but as soon as they had fed they would begin to be dangerous would be coming in before long and if his escort the second book had done its duty would have a very interesting tale to tell so he went in through the window and stooping over the man and the woman cut their pulling out the and looked round the hut for some milk was half wild with pain and fear she had been beaten and all the morning and put his hand over her mouth just in time to stop a scream her husband was only bewildered and angry and sat picking dust and things out of his torn beard i knew i knew he would come sobbed at last now do i know that he is my son and she to her heart up to that time had been perfectly steady but now he began to tremble all over and that surprised him immensely why are these why have they tied thee he asked after a pause to be put to the death for making a son of thee what else said the man sullenly look i said nothing but it was at her wounds that looked and they heard him his teeth when he saw the blood whose work is this said he there is a price to pay letting in the the work of all the village i was too rich i had too many cattle therefore she and i are because we gave thee shelter i do not understand let tell the tale i gave thee milk dost thou remember said timidly because thou my son whom the tiger took and because i loved thee very dearly they said that i was thy mother the mother of a devil and therefore worthy of death and what is a devil said death i have seen the man looked up gloomily but laughed see she said to her husband i knew i said that he was no he is my son my son son or what good will that do us the man answered we be as dead already yonder is the road to the pointed through the window your hands and feet are free go now we do not know the my son as as thou began i do not think that i could walk far and the men and women would be upon our backs and drag us here again said the husband the second book h m said and he the palm of his hand with the tip of his knife i have no wish to do harm to any one of this village but i do not think they will stay thee in a little while they will have much else to think upon ah he lifted his head and listened to shouting and outside so they have let come home at last he was sent out this morning to kill thee cried thou meet him yes we i met him he has a tale to tell and while he is telling it there is time to do much but first i will learn what they mean think where ye would go and tell me when i come back he bounded through the window and ran along again outside the wall of the village till he came within ear shot of the crowd round the tree was lying on the ground and groaning and every one was asking him questions his hair had fallen about his shoulders his hands and legs were from climbing up trees and he could hardly speak but he felt the importance of his position keenly from time to time he said something about devils and singing devils and magic enchantment just to give the crowd a taste of what was coming then he called for water letting in the said chatter chatter talk talk men are blood brothers of the log now he must wash his mouth with water now he must blow smoke and when all that is done he has still his story to tell they are very wise people men they will leave no one to guard till their ears are stuffed with s tales and i grow as lazy as they he shook himself and glided back to the hut just as he was at the window he felt a touch on his foot mother said he for he knew that tongue well what dost thou here i heard my children singing through the woods and i followed the one i loved best little i have a desire to see that woman who gave thee milk said mother wolf all wet with the dew they have bound and mean to kill her i have cut those ties and she goes with her man through the i also will follow i am old but not yet mother wolf reared herself up on end and looked through the window into the dark of the hut in a minute she dropped noiselessly and all the second book she said was i gave thee thy first milk but speaks truth man goes to man at the last maybe said with a very unpleasant look on his face but to night i am very far from that trail wait here but do not let her see thou never afraid of little said mother wolf into the high grass and herself out as she knew how and now said cheerfully as he swung into the hut again they are all sitting	39
round who is saying that which did not happen when his talk is finished they say they will assuredly come here with the red with fire and burn you both and then i have spoken to my man said is thirty miles from here but at we may find the english and what pack are they said i do not know they be white and it is said that they govern all the land and do not suffer people to burn or beat each other without witnesses if we can get thither to night we live otherwise we die live then no man passes the gates to night but what does he do s husband was letting in the on his hands and knees digging up the earth in one corner of the hut it is his little money said we can take nothing else ah yes the stuff that passes from hand to hand and never grows warmer do they need it outside this place also said the man stared angrily he is a fool and no devil he muttered with the money i can buy a horse we are too bruised to walk far and the village will follow us in an hour i say they will not follow till i choose but the horse is well thought of for is tired her husband stood up and knotted the last of the into his waist cloth helped through the window and the cool night air revived her but the in the looked very dark and terrible ye know the trail to whispered they nodded good remember now not to be afraid and there is no need to go quickly only only there maybe some small singing in the behind you and before think you we would have risked a night in the through anything less than the fear of the second book burning it is better to be killed by beasts than by men said s husband but looked at and smiled i say went on just as though he were repeating an old law for the time to a foolish i say that not a tooth in the is against you not a foot in the is lifted against you neither man nor beast shall stay you till ye come within eye shot of there will be a watch about you he turned quickly to saying he does not believe but thou wilt believe ay surely my son man ghost or wolf of the i believe e will be afraid when he hears my people singing thou wilt know and understand go now and slowly for there is no need of any haste the gates are shut flung herself sobbing at s feet but he lifted her very quickly with a shiver then she hung about his neck and called him every name of blessing she could think of but her husband looked across his fields and said i we reach and i get the ear of the english i will bring such a against the and old and the others as shall eat the village to the bone they shall pay me letting in the twice over for my crops and my i will have a great justice laughed i do not know what justice is but come next rains and see what is left they went off toward the and mother wolf leaped from her place of hiding follow said and look to it that all the knows these two are safe give tongue a little i would call the long low howl rose and fell and saw s husband and turn half minded to run back to the hut go on called cheerfully i said there might be singing the call will follow up to it is favor of the urged her husband forward and the darkness of the shut down on them and mother wolf as rose up almost under s feet trembling with delight of the night that drives the people wild i am ashamed of thy brethren he said what not sing sweetly to said too well too well they made even me forget my pride and by the broken lock that freed me i went singing through the as the second book though i were out in the spring thou not hear us i had other game ask if he liked the song but where are the four i do not wish one of the man pack to leave the gates to night what need of the four then said shifting from foot to foot his eyes and louder than ever i can hold them little brother is it killing at last the singing and the sight of the men climbing up the trees have made me very ready what is man that we should care for him the naked brown the and the of earth i have followed him all day at noon in the white sunlight i him as the wolves herd buck i am as i dance with my shadow so danced i with those men look the great leaped as a leaps at a dead leaf whirling overhead struck left and right into the empty air that sung under the strokes landed noiselessly and leaped again and again while the half half growl gathered head as steam in a i am in the in the night and all my strength is in me who shall stay my stroke man with letting in the one blow of my i could beat thy head flat as a dead in the summer strike then said in the dialect of the village not the talk of the and the human words brought to a full stop flung back on that quivered under him his head just at the level of s once more stared as he had stared at the rebellious full into the green eyes till the red glare	39
behind their green went out like the light of a shut off twenty miles across the sea till the eyes dropped and the big head with them dropped lower and lower and the red of a tongue on s brother brother brother the boy whispered steadily and lightly from the neck along the heaving back be still be still it is the fault of the night and no fault of thine it was the smells of the night said this air cries aloud to me but how dost thou know of course the air round an indian village is full of all kinds of smells and to any creature who does nearly all his thinking through his nose smells are as as music and are to human beings the pan the second book ther for a few minutes longer and he lay down like a cat before a fire his tucked under his breast and his eyes half shut thou art of the and not of the he said at last and i am only a black but i love thee little brother they are very long at their talk under the tree said without noticing the last sentence must have told many tales they should come soon to drag the woman and her man out of the trap and put them into the red flower they will find that trap sprung ho ho nay listen said the fever is out of my blood now let them find me there few would leave their houses after meeting me it is not the first time i have been in a cage and i do not think they will tie me with be wise then said laughing for he was beginning to feel as reckless as the who had glided into the hut this place is rank with man but here is just such a bed as they gave me to lie upon in the king s at now i lie down heard the strings of the cot crack under the great brute s weight by the broken lock that freed me letting in the they will think they have caught big game come and sit beside me little brother we will give them good hunting together no i have another thought in my stomach the man pack shall not know what share i have in the sport make thine own hunt i do not wish to see them be it so said ah now they come the conference under the tree had been growing and at the far end of the village it broke in wild and a rush up the street of men and women waving clubs and and and knives and the were at the head of it but the mob was close at their heels and they cried the witch and the let us see if hot will make them confess burn the hut over their heads we will teach them to shelter wolf devils nay beat them first more heat the gun barrels here was some little difficulty with the catch of the door it had been very firmly fastened but the crowd tore it away bodily and the light of the streamed into the room where stretched at full length on the bed his crossed and lightly hung down over one end black as the pit the second book and terrible as a demon was there was one half of desperate silence as the front ranks of the crowd and tore their way back from the threshold and in that minute raised his head and yawned carefully and as he would when he wished to insult an equal the fringed lips drew back and up the red tongue curled the lower jaw dropped and dropped till you could see half way down the hot and the gigantic dog teeth stood clear to the pit of the till they rang together upper and under with the of steel faced wards shooting home round the edges of a safe next instant the street was empty had leaped back through the window and stood at s side while a yelling screaming torrent scrambled and tumbled one over another in their panic haste to get to their own huts they will not stir till day comes said quietly and now the silence of the afternoon sleep seemed to have overtaken the village but as they listened they could hear the sound of heavy grain boxes being dragged over floors and set down against doors was quite right the village would not stir till daylight sat letting in the still and thought and his face grew darker and darker what have i done said at last coming to his feet nothing but great good watch them now till the day i sleep ran off into the and dropped like a dead man across a rock and slept and slept the day round and the night back again when he was at his side and there was a newly killed buck at his feet watched curiously while went to work with his knife ate and drank and turned over with his chin in his hands the man and the woman are come safe within eye shot of said thy mother sent the word back by the they found a horse before midnight of the night they were freed and went very quickly is not that well that is well said and thy man pack in the village did not stir till the sun was high this morning then they ate their food and ran back quickly to their houses did they by chance see thee it may have been i was rolling in the dust the second book before the gate at dawn and i may have made also some small song to myself now little brother there is nothing more to do come hunting with me and he has new that he wishes to show and	39
we all desire thee back again as of old take off that look which makes even me afraid the man and woman will not be put into the red flower and all goes well in the is it not true let us forget the man pack they shall be forgotten in a little while where does feed to night where he chooses who can answer for the silent one but why what is there can do which we cannot bid him and his three sons come here to me but indeed and truly little brother it is not it is not to say come and go to remember he is the master of the and before the man pack changed the look on thy face he taught thee the master words of the that is all one i have a master word for him now bid him come to the and if he does not hear at first bid him come because of the sack of the fields of the sack of the fields of ba letting in the repeated two or three times to make sure i go can but be angry at the worst and i would give a moon s hunting to hear a master word that the silent one he went away leaving furiously with his knife into the earth had never seen human blood in his life before till he had seen and what meant much more to him s blood on the that bound her and had been kind to him and so far as he knew anything about love he loved as completely as he hated the rest of mankind but deeply as he them their talk their cruelty and their cowardice not for anything the had to offer could he bring himself to take a human life and have that terrible scent of blood back again in his nostrils his plan was but much more thorough and he laughed to himself when he thought that it was one of old s tales told under the tree in the evening that had put the idea into his head it was a master word whispered in his ear they were feeding by the river and they obeyed as though they were look where they come now and his three sons had arrived in their the second book usual way without a sound the mud of the river was still fresh on their and was thoughtfully the green stem of a young tree that he had up with his but every line in his vast body showed to who could see things when he came across them that it was not the master of the speaking to a man but one who was afraid coming before one who was not his three sons rolled side by side behind their father hardly lifted his head as gave him good hunting he kept him swinging and rocking and shifting from one foot to another for a long time before he spoke and when he opened his mouth it was to not to the i will tell a tale that was told to me by the hunter ye hunted to day said it concerns an elephant old and wise who fell into a trap and the sharpened stake in the pit him from a little above his heel to the crest of his shoulder leaving a white mark threw out his hand and as wheeled the moonlight showed a long white on his side as though he had been struck with a red hot whip men came to take him from the trap continued but he broke his ropes for he was letting in the strong and went away till his wound was healed then came he angry by night to the fields of those hunters and i remember now that he had three sons these things happened many many rains ago and very far away among the fields of what came to those fields at the next they were by me and by my three sons said and to the that follows the said there was no said and to the men that live by the green crops on the ground said they went away and to the huts in which the men slept said we tore the roofs to pieces and the swallowed up the walls said and what more said as much good ground as i can walk over in two nights from the east to the west and from the north to the south as much as i can walk over in three nights the took we let in the upon five villages and in those villages and in their lands the ground and the soft crop grounds there is not one man to day loo the second book who takes his food from the ground that was the sack of the fields of which i and my three sons did and now i ask man how the news of it came to thee said a man told me and now i see even can speak truth it was well done with the white mark but the second time it shall be done better for the reason that there is a man to direct thou the village of the man pack that cast me out they are idle senseless and cruel they play with their mouths and they do not kill the weaker for food but for sport when they are full fed they would throw their own breed into the red flower this i have seen it is not well that they should live here any more i hate them kill then said the youngest of s three sons picking up a of grass it against his fore legs and throwing it away while his little red eyes glanced from side to side what good are white bones to me answered angrily am i the of a wolf to	39
play in the sun with a raw head i have killed and his hide on the council rock but but i do not know whither is gone and my stomach is still empty letting in the lo now i will take that which i can see and touch let in the upon that village shivered and down he could understand if the worst came to the worst a quick rush down the village street and a right and left blow into a crowd or a killing of men as they in the twilight but this scheme for deliberately out an entire village from the eyes of man and beast frightened him now he saw why had sent for no one but the elephant could plan and carry through such a war let them run as the men ran from the fields of till we have the rain water for the only and the noise of the rain on the thick leaves for the of their till and i in the house of the and the buck drink at the behind the temple let in the but i but we have no quarrel with them and it needs the red rage of great pain ere we tear down the places where men sleep said doubtfully are ye the only of grass in the drive in your let the deer and the pig and the look to it ye need never show loi the second book a hand s breadth of hide till the fields are naked let in the there will be no killing my were red at the sack of the fields of and i would not wake that smell again nor i i do not wish even their bones to lie on the clean earth let them go and find a fresh they cannot stay here i have seen and the blood of the woman that gave me food the woman whom they would have killed but for me only the smell of the new grass on their door steps can take away that smell it burns in my mouth let in the ah said so did the of the stake burn on my hide till we watched the villages die under in the spring growth now i see thy war shall be our war we will let in the had hardly time to catch his breath he was shaking all over with rage and hate before the place where the had stood was empty and was looking at him with terror by the broken lock that freed me said the black at last art t ou the naked thing i spoke for in the pack when all was young master of the when my strength goes letting in the speak for me speak for speak for us all we are before thee snapped twigs under foot that have lost their the idea of being a stray upset altogether and he laughed and caught his breath and sobbed and laughed again till he had to jump into a pool to make himself stop then he swam round and round in and out of the bars of the moonlight like the his by this time and his three sons had turned each to one point of the compass and were silently down the valleys a mile away they went on and on for two days march that is to say a long sixty miles through the and every step they took and every wave of their trunks was known and noted and talked over by and and the monkey people and all the birds then they began to feed and fed quietly for a week or so and his sons are like the rock they never hurry till they have to at the end of that time and none knew who had started it a went through the that there was better food and water to be found in such and such a valley the pig who of course will go to the ends of the earth for a full the second book meal moved first by companies over the rocks and the deer followed with the small wild that live on the dead and dying of the herds and the heavy shouldered moved parallel with the deer and the wild of the came after the the least little thing would have turned the scattered straggling that and sauntered and drank and again but whenever there was an alarm some one would rise up and soothe them at one time it would be the full of news of good feed just a little further on at another would cry cheerily and down a to show it was all empty or his mouth full of roots would alongside a wavering line and half frighten half it back to the proper road very many creatures broke back or ran away or lost interest but very many were left to go forward at the end of another ten days or so the situation was this the deer and the pig and the were round and round in a circle of eight or ten miles while the of flesh round its edge and the of that circle was the village and round the village the crops were and in the crops sat men on what they call like pigeon made of sticks at letting in the the top of four poles to scare away birds and other then the deer were no more the of flesh were close behind them and forced them forward and inward it was a dark night when and his three sons slipped down from the and broke off the poles of the with their trunks they fell as a snapped stalk of in bloom falls and the men that tumbled from them heard the deep of the elephant in their ears then the	39
of the bewildered armies of the deer broke down and into the village grounds and the fields and the sharp wild pig came with them and what the deer left the pig spoiled and from time to time an alarm of wolves would shake the herds and they would rush to and fro desperately treading down the young and cutting flat the banks of the channels before the dawn broke the pressure on the outside of the circle gave way at one point the of flesh had fallen back and left an open path to the south and drove upon drove of buck fled along it others who were bolder lay up in the to finish their meal next night but the work was practically done when the villagers looked in the morning they saw their io the second book crops were lost and that meant death if they did not get away for they lived year in and year out as near to starvation as the was near to them when the were sent to the hungry brutes found that the deer had cleared the grounds and so wandered into the and drifted off with their wild mates and when twilight fell the three or four that belonged to the village lay in their stables with their heads beaten in only could have given those strokes and only would have thought of dragging the last to the open street the villagers had no heart to make fires in the fields that night so and his three sons went among what was left and where there is no need to follow the men decided to live on their stored seed corn until the rains had fallen and then to take work as servants till they could catch up with the lost year but as the grain dealer was thinking of his of corn and the prices he would at the sale of it s sharp were picking out the corner of his mud house and open the big chest with cow where the precious stuff lay when that last loss was discovered it was the letting in the s turn to speak he had prayed to his own gods without answer it might be he said that unconsciously the village had offended some one of the gods of the for beyond doubt the was against them so they sent for the head man of the nearest tribe of wandering little wise and very black hunters living in the deep whose fathers came of the oldest race in india the owners of the land they made the welcome with what they had and he stood on one leg his bow in his hand and two or three poisoned arrows stuck through his top knot looking half afraid and half contemptuously at the anxious villagers and their ruined fields they wished to know whether his gods the old gods were angry with them and what sacrifices should be offered the said nothing but picked up a trail of the the vine that bears the bitter wild and it to and fro across the temple door in the face of the staring red image then he pushed with his hand in the open air along the road to and went back to his and watched the people drifting through it he knew that when the moves only white men can hope to turn it aside there was no need to ask his meaning the io the second book wild would grow where they had their god and the sooner they saved themselves the better but it is hard to tear a village from its they stayed on as long as any summer food was left to them and they tried to gather nuts in the but shadows with glaring eyes watched them and rolled before them even at midday and when they ran back afraid to their walls on the tree trunks they had passed not five minutes before the bark would be stripped and with the stroke of some great the more they kept to their village the bolder grew the wild things that and on the grounds by the they had no time to patch and plaster the rear walls of the empty that backed on to the the wild pig trampled them down and the rooted vines hurried after and threw their elbows over the new won ground and the coarse grass behind the vines like the of a army following a retreat the unmarried men ran away first and carried the news far and near that the village was doomed who could fight they said against the or the gods of the when the very village had left his hole in the platform under the letting in the tree so their little commerce with the outside world shrunk as the trodden paths across the open grew fewer and fainter at last the nightly of and his three sons ceased to trouble them for they had no more to be robbed of the crop on the ground and the seed in the ground had been taken the fields were already losing their shape and it was time to throw themselves on the charity of the english at native fashion they delayed their departure from one day to another till the first rains caught them and the roofs let in a flood and the ground stood ankle deep and all life came on with a rush after the heat of the summer then they out men women and children through the blinding hot rain of the morning bi t turned naturally for one farewell look at their homes they heard as the last family filed through the gate a crash of falling beams and behind the walls they saw a shiny black trunk lifted for an instant scattering it disappeared and there was another crash followed by a had been off the roofs of the huts as	39
you pluck water lilies and a beam had no the second book pricked him he needed only this to his full strength for of all things in the the wild elephant enraged is the most destructive he kicked backward at a mud wall that at the stroke and crumbling melted to yellow mud under the torrent of rain then he wheeled and and tore through the narrow streets leaning against the huts right and left shivering the crazy doors and up the while his three sons raged behind as they had raged at the sack of the fields of the will swallow these shells said a quiet voice in the it is the outer wall that must lie down and with the rain over his bare shoulders and arms leaped back from a wall that was settling like a tired all in good time panted oh bi t my were red at to the outer wall children with the head together now the four pushed side by side the outer wall split and fell and the villagers dumb with horror saw the savage clay heads of the in the ragged gap then they fled and down the valley as letting in the in their village and tossed and trampled melted behind them a month later the place was a mound covered with soft green young stuff and by the end of the rains there was the roaring in full blast on the spot that had been under not six months before song against people let loose against you the fleet footed i will call in the to stamp out your the roofs shall fade before it the house beams shall fall and the the bitter in the gates of these your my in the doors of these your the bat folk shall cling and the snake shall be your by a for the the bitter shall fruit where ye slept ye shall not see my ye shall hear them and guess by night before the moon rise i will send for my and the wolf shall be your by a removed for the the bitter shall seed where ye loved letting in the i will reap your fields before you at the hands of a host ye shall behind my for the bread that is lost and the deer shall be your oxen by a for the the bitter shall leaf where ye build i have against you the club footed vines i have sent in the to swamp out your lines the trees the trees are on you the house beams shall fall and the the bitter shall cover you all the when ye say to my brother when ye call the to meat ye may cry the full with the belly that runs on four feet law the the aged it was a thick voice a muddy voice that would have made you shudder a voice like something soft breaking in two there was a in it a and a respect the aged o companions of the river respect the aged nothing could be seen on the broad reach of the river except a little fleet of square sailed wooden pinned loaded with that had just come under the railway bridge and were driving down stream they put their clumsy over to avoid the sand bar ii the second book made by the of the bridge and as they passed three abreast the horrible voice began again o of the river respect the aged and a turned where he sat on the lifted up his hand said something that was not a blessing and the boats on through the twilight the broad indian river that looked more like a chain of little lakes than a stream was as smooth as glass reflecting the sandy red sky in mid channel but with patches of yellow and dusky purple near and under the low banks little ran into the river in the wet season but now their dry mouths hung clear above water line on the left shore and almost under the railway bridge stood a mud and brick and and stick village whose main street full of cattle going back to their ran straight to the river and ended in a sort of rude brick pier head where people who wanted to wash could in step by step that was the of the village of night was falling fast over the fields of and rice and cotton in the low lying ground yearly by the river over the that fringed the elbow of the bend and the tangled the low of the grounds behind the still the and who had been chattering and shouting over their evening drink had flown inland to crossing the of the flying and cloud upon cloud of water birds came whistling and to the cover of the reed beds there were barrel headed and black backed and with and here and there a a brought up the rear flying as though each slow stroke would be his last respect the aged of the river respect the aged the half turned his head a little in the direction of the voice and landed stiffly on the sand bar below the bridge then you saw what a brute he really was his back view was immensely respectable for he stood nearly six feet high and looked rather like a very proper bald headed parson in front it was for his ally like head arid neck had not a feather to them and there was a horrible raw skin on his neck under his chin a hold all for the things his might steal his legs were long and thin and the second book but he moved them delicately and looked at them with pride as he down his tail feathers glanced over the smooth of his shoulder and into stand at attention a little who had been	39
on a low bluff cocked up his ears and tail and across the to join the he was the lowest of his caste not that the best of are good for much but this one was peculiarly low being half a beggar half a criminal a up of village rubbish heaps desperately timid or wildly bold hungry and full of cunning that never did him any good he said shaking himself as he landed may the red destroy the dogs of this village i have three for each upon me and all because i looked only looked mark you at an old shoe in a cow can i eat mud he scratched himself under his left ear i heard said the in a voice like a blunt saw going through a thick board i heard there was a new born in that same shoe to hear is one thing to know is another said the who had a very fair knowledge the of picked up by listening to men round the village fires of an evening quite true so to make sure i took care of that while the dogs were busy elsewhere they were very busy said the well i must not go to the village hunting for yet awhile and so there truly was a blind in that shoe it is here said the over his at his full a small thing but acceptable now that charity is dead in the world the world is iron in these days the then his restless eye caught the least possible ripple on the water and he went on quickly life is hard for us all and i doubt not that even our excellent master the pride of the and the envy of the river a liar a and a were all out of the same said the to nobody in particular for he was rather a fine sort of a liar on his own account when he took the trouble yes the envy of the river the repeated raising his voice even he i doubt not finds that since the bridge has been built good food is more scarce but on the other hand though i would by no means say this to his the second book noble face he is so wise and so virtuous as i alas am not when the owns he is gray how black must the be muttered the he could not see what was coming that his food never fails and in consequence there was a soft grating sound as though a boat had just touched in water the spun round quickly and faced it is always best to face the creature he had been talking about it was a twenty four foot in what looked like plate studded and and the yellow points of his upper teeth just overhanging his beautifully lower jaw it was the blunt of older than any man in the village who had given his name to the village the demon of the ford before the railway bridge came murderer man and local in one he lay with his chin in the keeping his place by an almost invisible rippling of his tail and well the knew that one stroke of that same tail in the water could carry the up the bank with the rush of a met protector of the poor he the at every word a voice was heard and we came in the hopes of sweet conversation my presumption while waiting here led me indeed to speak of thee it is my hope that nothing was overheard now the had spoken just to be listened to for he knew flattery was the best way of getting things to eat and the knew that the had spoken for this end and the knew that the knew and the knew that the knew that the knew and so they were all very contented together the old brute pushed and panted and up the bank respect the aged and and all the time his little eyes burned like coals under the heavy eyelids on the top of his head as he his barrel body along between his legs then he settled down and accustomed as the was to his ways he could not help starting for the time when he saw how exactly the a log adrift on the bar he had even taken pains to lie at the exact angle a naturally log would make with the water having regard to the current of the season at the time and place all this was the second book only a matter of habit of course because the had come ashore for pleasure but a is never quite full and if the had been deceived by the likeness he would not have lived to over it my child i heard nothing said the shutting one eye the water was in my ears and also i was faint with hunger since the railway bridge was built my people at my village have ceased to love me and that is breaking my heart ah shame said the so noble a heart too but men are all alike to my mind nay there are very great differences indeed the answered gently some are as lean as boat poles others again are fat as young dogs never would i men they are of all fashions but the long years have shown me that one with another they are very good men women and children i have no fault to find with them and remember child he who the world is by the world flattery is worse than an empty tin can in the belly but that which we have just heard is wisdom said the bringing down one foot the consider though their ingratitude to this excellent one began the tenderly nay nay not ingratitude the said they do not think	39
for others that is all but i have noticed lying at my station below the ford that the stairs of the new bridge are cruelly hard to climb both for old people and young children the old indeed are not so worthy of consideration but i am grieved i am truly grieved on account of the fat children still i think in a little while when the of the bridge has worn away we shall see my people s bare brown legs bravely through the ford as before then the old will be honored again but surely i saw wreaths floating off the edge of the only this noon said the wreaths are a sign of reverence all india over an error an error it was the wife of the she loses her year by year and cannot tell a log from me the of the i saw the mistake when she threw the for i was lying at the very foot of the and had she taken another step i might have shown her some little differ the second book ence yet she meant well and we must consider the spirit of the offering what good are wreaths when one is on the rubbish heap said the hunting for but keeping one wary eye on his protector of the poor true but they have not yet begun to make the rubbish heap that shall carry me five times have i seen the river draw back from the village and make new land at the foot of the street five times have i seen the village on the banks and i shall see it built yet five times more i am no fish hunting i at to day and to morrow as the saying is but the true and constant of the ford it is not for nothing child that the village bears my name and he who watches long as the saying is shall at last have his reward have watched long very long nearly all my life and my reward has been and blows said the ho ho ho roared the ih august was the born the rains fell in september now such a fearful flood as this says he i can t remember the there is one very unpleasant peculiarity about the at uncertain times he suffers from acute attacks of the or in his legs and though he is more virtuous to behold than any of the who are all immensely respectable he flies off into wild war dances half opening his wings and his bald head up and down while for reasons best known to himself he is very careful to time his worst attacks with his remarks at the last word of his song he came to attention again ten times than before the though he was full three seasons old but you cannot resent an insult from a person with a a yard long and the power of driving it like a the was a most notorious coward but the was worse we must live before we can learn said the and there is this to say little are very common child but such a as i am is not common for all that i am not proud since pride is destruction but take notice it is fate and against his fate no one who or walks or runs should say anything at all i am well contented with fate with good luck a keen eye and the custom of considering whether a the second book creek or a has an to it ere you ascend much may be done once i heard that even the protector of the poor made a mistake said the true but there my fate helped me it was before i had come to my full growth before the last famine but three by the right and left of how full used the streams to be in those days yes i was young and and when the flood came who so pleased as i a little made me very happy then the village was deep in flood and i swam above the and went far inland up to the rice fields and they were deep in good mud i remember also a pair of glass they were and troubled me not a little that i found that evening yes glass and if my memory serves me well a shoe i should have shaken off both shoes but i was hungry i learned better later yes and so i fed and rested me but when i was ready to go to the river again the flood had fallen and i walked through the mud of the main street who but i came out all my people priests and women and children and i looked upon them with benevolence the mud is not a good place to fight in said a get and kill him for he is the of the the ford not so said the look he is driving the flood before him he is the of the village then they threw many flowers at me and by happy thought one led a goat across the road how good how very good is goat said the hairy too hairy and when found in the water more than likely to hide a cross shaped hook but that goat i accepted and went down to the in great honor later my fate sent me the who had desired to cut off my tail with an axe his boat upon an old which you would not remember we are not all here said the was it the made where the sank in the year of the great a long that lasted three floods there were two said the an upper and a lower ay i forgot a channel divided them and later dried up again said the who himself on his memory	39
on the lower my well s craft he was sleeping in the bows and half awake leaped over to his waist no it was no more than to his knees to push off his i the second book empty boat went on and touched again below the next reach as the river ran then i followed because i knew men would come out to drag it ashore and did they do so said the a little awe stricken this was hunting on a scale that impressed him there and lower down they did i went no further but that gave me three in one day all and except in the case of the last then i was careless never a cry to warn those on the bank ah noble sport but what cleverness and great judgment it requires said the not cleverness child but only thought a little thought in life is like salt upon rice as the say and i have thought deeply always the my cousin the fish has told me how hard it is for him to follow his fish and how one fish from the other and how he must know them all both together and apart i say that is wisdom but on the other hand my cousin the lives among his people my people do not swim in companies with their mouths out of the water as does nor do they constantly rise to the surface of the water and turn over on their sides like and little the nor do they gather in after flood like and all are very good eating said the his so my cousin says and makes a great to do over hunting them but they do not climb the banks to escape his sharp nose my people are otherwise their life is on the land in the houses among the cattle i must know what they do and what they are about to do and adding the tail to the trunk as the saying is i make up the whole elephant is there a green branch and an iron ring hanging over a doorway the old knows that a boy has been born in that house and must some day come down to the to play is a maiden to be married the old knows for he sees the men carry gifts back and forth and she too comes down to the to before her wedding and he is there has the river changed its channel and made new land where there was only sand before the knows now of what use is that knowledge said the the river has shifted even in my little life indian rivers are nearly always moving about in their beds and will shift sometimes as much as two or three miles in a season drown the second book ing the fields on one bank and spreading good on the other there is no knowledge so useful said the for new land means new quarrels the knows the knows as soon as the water has drained off he up the little that men think would not hide a dog and there he waits presently comes a farmer saying he will plant here and there in the new land that the river has given him he feels the good mud with his bare toes anon comes another saying he will put and and sugar cane in such and such places they meet as boats adrift meet and each rolls his eye at the other under the big blue the old sees and hears each calls the other brother and they go to mark out the boundaries of the new land the with them from point to point shuffling very low through the mud now they begin to quarrel now they say hot words now they pull now they lift up their clubs and at last one falls backward into the mud and the other runs away when he comes back the dispute is settled as the of the witnesses yet they are not grateful to the no they cry the murder and their families fight with sticks twenty a side my people are good people of the bet they do not give blows for sport and when the fight is done the old waits far down the river out of sight of the village behind the then come they down my broad shouldered eight or nine together under the stars bearing the dead man upon a bed they are old men with gray and voices as deep as mine they light a little fire ah how well i know that fire and they drink tobacco and they nod their heads together forward in a ring or sideways toward the dead man upon the bank they say the english law will come with a rope for this matter and that such a man s family will be ashamed because such a man must be hanged in the great square of the jail then say the friends of the dead let him hang and the talk is all to do over again once twice twenty times in the long night then says one at last the fight was a fair fight let us take blood money a little more than is offered by the and we will say no more about it then do they over the blood money for the dead was a strong man leaving many sons yet before sunrise they put the fire to him a little i the second book as the custom is and the dead man comes to me and he says no more about it my children the knows the knows and my are a good people they are too close too narrow in the hand for my crop the they waste not the polish on the cow s horn as the saying is and again	39
who can after a ah i them said the now in of the south in the old days the went on everything was thrown into the streets and we picked and chose those were dainty seasons but to day they keep their streets as clean as the outside of an egg and my people fly away to be clean is one thing to dust sweep and seven times a day the very gods themselves there was a down country had it from a brother who told me that in of the south all the were as fat as in the rains said the his mouth watering at the bare thought of it ah but the white faces are there the english and they bring dogs from somewhere down the river in boats big fat dogs to keep those same lean said the the they are then as hard hearted as these people i might have known neither earth sky nor water shows charity to a i saw the tents of a white face last season after the rains and i also took a new yellow bridle to eat the white faces do not dress their leather in the proper way it made me very sick that was better than my case said the when i was in my third season a young and a bold bird i went down to the river where the big boats in the boats of the english are thrice as big as this village he has been as far as and says all the people there walk on their heads muttered the the opened his left eye and looked keenly at the it is true the big bird insisted a liar only lies when he hopes to be believed no one who had not seen those boats could believe this truth that is more reasonable said the and then from the of this boat they were taking out great pieces of white stuff which in a little while turned to water much split off and fell about on the shore and the rest they swiftly put into a house with thick walls but a the second book who laughed took a piece no larger than a small dog and threw it to me i all my people swallow without reflection and that piece i swallowed as is our custom immediately i was afflicted with an excessive cold which beginning in my crop ran down to the extreme end of my toes and deprived me even of speech while the laughed at me never have i felt such cold i danced in my grief and amazement till i could recover my breath and then i danced and cried out against the of this world and the me till they fell down the chief wonder of the matter setting aside that coldness was that there was nothing at all in my crop when i had finished my the had done his very best to describe his feelings after a seven pound lump of lake ice ofl an american in the days before made her ice by machinery but as he did not know what ice was and as the and the knew rather less the tale missed fire anything said the shutting his left eye again anything is possible that comes out of a boat thrice the size of my village is not a small one the there was a whistle overhead on the bridge and the mail slid across all the carriages gleaming with light and the shadows faithfully following along the river it away into the dark again but the and the were so well used to it that they never turned their heads is that anything less wonderful than a boat thrice the size of said the bird looking up i saw that built child stone by stone i saw the bridge rise and when the men fell off they were wondrous sure footed for the most part but when they fell i was ready after the first pier was made they never thought to look down the stream for the body to burn there again i saved much trouble there was nothing strange in the building of the bridge said the but that which goes across pulling the carts that is strange the repeated it is past any doubt a new breed of some day it will not be able to keep its up yonder and will fall as the men did the old will then be ready the looked at the and the looked at the if there was one the second book thing they were more certain of than another it was that the engine was everything in the wide world except a the had watched it time and again from the hedges by the side of the line and the had seen engines since the first ran in india but the had only looked up at the thing from below where the brass dome seemed rather like a s m yes a new kind of the repeated to make himself quite sure in his own mind and certainly it is a said the and again it might be began the certainly most certainly said the without waiting for the other to finish what said the angrily for he could feel that the others knew more than he did what might it be never finished my words you said it was a it is anything the protector of the poor pleases i am his servant not the servant of the thing that crosses the river whatever it is it is white face work said the and for my own part i would not lie out upon a place so near to it as this bar you do not know the english as i do said the the there was a white face here when the bridge was built	39
and he would take a boat in the evenings and with his feet on the bottom boards and whisper is he here is he there bring me my gun i could hear him before i could see him each sound that he made creaking and puffing and rattling his gun up and down the river as surely as i had picked up one of his workmen and thus saved great expense in wood for the burning so surely would he come down to the and shout in a loud voice that he would hunt me and rid the river of me the of me children i have under the bottom of his boat for hour after hour and heard him fire his gun at logs and when i was well sure he was wearied i have risen by his side and snapped my jaws in his face when the bridge was finished he went away all the english hunt in that fashion except when they are hunted who the white faces the excitedly no one now but i have hunted them in my time i remember a little of that hunting i was young then said the his significantly i was well established here my village was i the second book being for the third time as i remember when my cousin the brought me word of rich waters above at first i would not go for my cousin who is a fish does not always know the good from the bad but i heard my people talking in the evenings and what they said made me certain and what did they say the asked they said enough to make me the of leave water and take to my feet i went by night using the streams as they served me but it was the beginning of the hot weather and all streams were low i crossed dusty roads i went through tall grass i climbed hills in the moonlight even rocks did i climb children consider this well i crossed the tail of the before i could find the set of the little rivers that flow i was a month s journey from my own people and the river that i knew that was very what food on the way said the who kept his soul in his little stomach and was not a bit impressed by the s land travels that which i could find cousin said the slowly dragging each word now you do not call a man a cousin in india the unless you think you can establish some kind of blood relationship and as it is only in old that the ever a the knew for what reason he had been suddenly lifted into the s family circle if they had been alone he would not have cared but the s eyes with mirth at the ugly jest assuredly father i might have known said the a does not care to be called a father of and the of said as much and a great deal more which there is no use in repeating here the protector of the poor has claimed how can i remember the precise degree moreover we eat the same food he has said it was the s reply that made matters rather worse for what the hinted at was that the must have eaten his food on that land march fresh and fresh every day instead of keeping it by him till it was in a fit and proper condition as every self respecting and most wild beasts do when they can indeed one of the worst terms of contempt along the river bed is of fresh meat it is nearly as bad as calling a man a y the second book that food was eaten thirty seasons ago said the quietly if we talk for thirty seasons more it will never come back tell us now what happened when the good waters were reached after thy most wonderful land journey if we listened to the howling of every the business of the town would stop as the saying is the must have been grateful for the interruption because he went on with a rush by the right and left of when i came there never did i see such waters were they better then than the big flood of last season said the better that flood was no more than comes every five years a handful of drowned strangers some chickens and a dead in muddy water with cross currents but the season i think of the river was low smooth and even and as the had warned me the dead english came down touching each other i got my in that season my and my depth from by and the broad waters by oh the that set under the walls of the fort at said the they came in there like to the and round and round they swung thus the i he went off into his horrible dance again while the looked on he naturally could not remember the terrible year of the they were talking about the continued yes by one lay still in the and let twenty go by to pick one and above all the english were not with and nose rings and as my women are nowadays to delight in ornaments is to end with a rope for as the saying is all the of all the rivers grew fat then but it was my fate to be than them all the news was that the english were being hunted into the rivers and by the right and left of we believed it was true so far as i went south i believed it to be true and i went down stream beyond and the that look over the river i know that place said the since those days is a lost city	39
very few live there now thereafter i worked up stream very slowly and lazily and a little above there came down a of white faces alive they were as i remember women lying under a cloth spread over sticks and crying aloud there was the second book never a gun fired at us the of the in those days all the guns were busy elsewhere we could hear them day and night inland coming and going as the wind shifted i rose up full before the boat because i had never seen white faces alive though i knew them well otherwise a naked white child by the side of the boat and stooping over must needs try to trail his hands in the river it is a pretty thing to see how a child loves running water i had fed that day but there was yet a little space within me still it was for sport and not for food that i rose at the child s hands they were so clear a mark that i did not even look when i closed but they were so small that though my jaws rang true i am sure of that the child drew them up swiftly they must have passed between tooth and tooth those small white hands i should have caught him at the elbows but as i said it was only for sport and desire to see new things that i rose at all they cried out one after another in the boat and presently i rose again to watch them their boat was too heavy to push over they were only women but he who a woman will walk on in a pool as the saying is and by the right and left of that is truth the once a woman gave me some dried skin from a fish said the i had hoped to get her baby but horse food is better than the kick of a horse as the saying is what did thy woman do she fired at me with a short gun of a kind i have never seen before or since five times one after another the must have met with an old fashioned revolver and i stayed and gaping my head in the smoke never did i see such a thing five times as swiftly as i wave my tail thus the who had been growing more and more interested in the story had just time to leap back as the long tail swung by like a not before the fifth shot said the as though he had never dreamed of one of his listeners not before the fifth shot did i sink and i rose in time to hear a telling all those white women that i was most certainly dead one bullet had gone under a of mine i know not if it is there still for the reason i cannot turn my head look and see child it will show that my tale is true i said the shall an of old shoes a bone presume to doubt the word of the envy of the river may my tail be bit the second book ten off by blind if the shadow of such a thought has crossed my humble mind the protector of the poor has condescended to inform me his slave that once in his life he has been wounded by a woman that is sufficient and i will tell the tale to all my children asking for no proof over much civility is sometimes no better than over much for as the saying is one can choke a guest with i do not desire that any children of thine should know thai the of took his only wound from a woman they will have much else to think of if they get their meat as miserably as does their father it is forgotten long ago it was never said there never was a white woman there was no boat nothing whatever happened at all the waved his brush to show how completely everything was wiped out of his memory and sat down with an air indeed very many things happened said the beaten in his second attempt that night to get the better of his friend neither bore malice however eat and be eaten was fair law along the river and the came in for his share of plunder when the had finished the a meal i left that boat and went up stream and when i had reached and the behind it there were no more dead english the river was empty for a while then came one or two dead in red coats not english but of one kind all and then five and six abreast and at last from to the north beyond it was as though whole villages had walked into the water they came out of little one after another as the logs come down in the rains when the river rose they rose also in companies from the they had rested upon and the falling flood dragged them with it across the fields and through the by the long hair all night too going north i heard the guns and by day the shod feet of men crossing and that noise which a heavy cart wheel makes on sand under water and every ripple brought more dead at last even i was afraid for i said if this thing happen to men how shall the of escape there were boats too that came up behind me without sails burning continually as the cotton boats sometimes burn but never sinking ah said the boats like those come to of the south they are tall the second book and black they beat up the water behind them with a tail and they are thrice as big as my village boats were low and	39
white they beat up the water on either side of them and were no larger than the boats of one who speaks truth should be they made me very afraid and i left water and went back to this my river hiding by day and walking by night when i could not find little streams to help me i came to my village again but i did not hope to see any of my people there yet they were and and and going to and fro in their fields as quietly as their own cattle was there still good food in the river said the more than i had any desire for even i and i do not eat mud even i was tired and as i remember a little frightened of this constant coming down of the silent ones i heard my people say in my village that all the english were dead but those that came face down with the current were english as my people saw then my people said that it was best to say nothing at all but to pay the tax and the land after a long time the river cleared and those that came down it had been clearly drowned by the the floods as i could well see and though it was not so easy then to get food i was heartily glad of it a little killing here and there is no bad thing but even the is sometimes satisfied as the saying is most truly said the i am become fat through merely hearing about so much good eating and afterward what if it be permitted to ask did the protector of the poor do i said to myself and by the right and left of i locked my jaws on that vow i said i would never go any more so i lived by the very close to my own people and i watched over them year after year and they loved me so much that they threw wreaths at my head whenever they saw it lift yes and my fate has been very kind to me and the river is good enough to respect my poor and presence only no one is all happy from his to his tail said the what does the of need more that little white child which i did not get said the with a deep sigh he was very small but i have not forgotten i am old now but before i die it is my desire to try one ii iso the second book new thing it is true they are a heavy footed noisy and foolish people and the sport would be small but i remember the old days above and if the child lives he will remember still it may be he goes up and down the bank of some river telling how he once passed his hands between the teeth of the of and lived to make a tale of it my fate has been very kind but that me sometimes in my dreams the thought of the little white child in the bows of that boat he yawned and closed his jaws and now i will rest and think keep silent my children and respect the aged he turned stiffly and to the top of the sand bar while the drew back with the to the shelter of a tree on the end nearest the railway bridge that was a pleasant and profitable life he grinned looking up at the bird who above him and not once mark you did he think fit to tell me where a morsel might have been left along the banks yet i have told him l hundred times of good things down stream how true is the saying all the world forgets the and the when the news has been told now he is going to sleep the how can a hunt with a said the coolly big thief and little thief it is easy to say who gets the the turned impatiently and was going to curl himself up under the tree trunk when suddenly he and looked up through the branches at the bridge almost above his head what now said the opening his wings uneasily wait till we see the wind blows from us to them but they are not looking for us those two men men is it my office me all india knows i am holy the being a first class is allowed to go where he pleases and so this one never i am not worth a blow from anything greater than an old shoe said the and listened again hark to that he went on that was no country leather but the shod foot of a white face listen again iron iron up there it is a gun friend those foolish english are coming to speak with the warn him then he was called protector i the second book of the poor by some one not unlike a starving but a little time ago let my cousin protect his own hide he has told me again and again there is nothing to fear from the white faces they must be white faces not a of would dare to come after him see i said it was a gun now with good luck we shall feed before daylight he cannot hear well out of water and this time it is not a woman a shiny barrel glittered for a minute in the moonlight on the the was lying on the sand bar as still as his own shadow his fore feet spread out a his head dropped between them like a a voice on the bridge whispered it s an odd shot straight down almost but as safe as houses better try behind the neck what a brute the villagers will be wild	39
if he s shot though he s the a of these parts don t care a rap another voice answered he took about fifteen of my best while the bridge was building and it s time he was put a stop to i ve been after him in a boat for weeks stand by with the as soon as i ve given him both barrels of this mind the kick then a double four bore s no joke the that s for him to decide here goes there was a roar hke the sound of a small cannon the biggest sort of elephant rifle is not very different from some and a double streak of flame followed by the crack of a whose long bullet makes nothing of a s plates but the bullets did the work one of them struck just behind the s neck a hand s breadth to the left of the while the other burst a little lower down at the beginning of the tail in ninety nine cases out of a hundred a wounded can scramble to deep water and get away but the of was literally broken into three pieces he hardly moved his head before the life went out of him and he lay as flat as the thunder and lightning lightning and thunder said that miserable little beast has the thing that the covered carts over the bridge tumbled at last it is no more than a gun said the though his very tail feathers quivered nothing more than a gun he is certainly dead here come the white faces the two englishmen had hurried down from the bridge and across to the sand bar where they the second book stood admiring the length of the then a native with an axe cut off the big head and four men dragged it across the spit the last time that i had my hand in a s mouth said one of the englishmen stooping down he was the man who had built the bridge it was when i was about five years old coming down the river by boat to i was a baby as they call it poor mother was in the boat too and she often told me how she fired s old pistol at the beast s head well you ve certainly had your revenge on the chief of the even if the gun has made your nose hi you haul that head up the bank and we boil it for the skull the skin s too knocked about to keep come along to bed now this was worth sitting up all night for was n t it curiously enough the and the made the very same remark not three minutes after the men had left a ripple song a ripple came to land in the golden sunset burning against a maiden s hand by the ford returning dainty foot and gentle breast here across be glad and rest maiden wait the ripple wait awhile for i am death i where my lover calls i go shame it were to treat him t was a fish that so turning over boldly dainty foot and tender heart wait the loaded cart wait ah wait i the ripple maiden wait for i am death the second book when my lover calls i haste dame disdain was never wedded ripple ripple round her waist clear the current foolish heart and faithful hand little feet that touched no land far away the ripple sped ripple ripple running red the king s these are the four that are never content that have never been filled since the began s mouth and the of the and the hands of the and the eyes of man saying the king s the big rock had changed his skin for perhaps the two time since his birth and who never forgot that he owed his life to for a night s work at cold which you may perhaps remember went to congratulate him always makes a snake moody and depressed till the new skin begins to shine and look beautiful never made fun of any more but accepted him as the other people did for the master of the and brought him all the news that a of his i o the second book size would naturally hear what did not know about the middle as they call it the life that runs close to the earth or under it the and the tree life might have been written upon the smallest of his scales that afternoon was sitting in the circle of s great the and broken old skin that lay all and twisted among the rocks just as had left it had very courteously packed himself under s broad bare shoulders so that the boy was really resting in a living arm chair even to the scales of the eyes it is perfect said under his breath playing with the old skin strange to see the covering of ones own head at one s own feet aye but i lack feet said and since this is the custom of all my people i do not find it strange does thy skin never feel old and harsh then go i and wash but it is true in the great i have wished i could my skin without pain and run i wash and also i take off my skin how looks the new coat ran his hand down the check the king s i i of the immense back the is harder backed but not so gay he said the my name bearer is more gay but not so hard it is very beautiful to see like the in the mouth of a lily it needs water a new skin never comes to full color before the first bath let us go i will	39
carry thee said and he stooped down laughing to lift the middle section of s great body just where the barrel was a man might just as well have tried to heave up a two foot water main and lay still puffing with quiet amusement then the regular evening game began the boy in the flush of his great strength and the in his new skin standing up one against the other for a match a trial of eye and strength of course could have crushed a dozen if he had let himself go but he played carefully and never one tenth of his power ever since was strong enough to endure a little rough handling had taught him this game and it his limbs as nothing else could sometimes would stand almost to his throat in s shifting striving to get one arm free and catch i the second book him by the throat then would give way and with both quick moving feet would try to the purchase of that huge tail as it flung backward feeling for a rock or a stump they would rock to and fro head to head each waiting for his chance till the beautiful group melted in a whirl of black and yellow and struggling legs and arms to rise up again and again now now now said making with his head that even s quick hand could not turn aside look i touch thee here little brother here and here are thy hands here again the game always ended in one way with a straight driving blow of the head that knocked the boy over and over could never learn the guard for that lightning and as said there was not the least use in trying good hunting at last and as usual was shot away half a dozen yards gasping and laughing he rose with his fingers full of grass and followed to the wise snake s pet bathing place a deep pool surrounded with rocks and made interesting by sunken tree the boy slipped in fashion without a sound and across rose too without a sound and turned on the king s his back his arms behind his head watching the moon rising above the rocks and breaking up her reflection in the water with his toes s diamond shaped head cut the pool hke a and came out to rest on s shoulder they lay still in the cool water it is very good said at last now in the man pack at this hour as i remember they laid them down upon hard pieces of wood in the inside of a mud trap and having carefully shut out all the clean winds drew foul cloth over their heavy heads and made evil songs through their noses it is better in the a hurrying slipped down over a rock and drank gave them good hunting and went away said as though he had suddenly remembered something so the gives thee all that thou hast ever desired little brother not all said laughing else there would be a new and strong to kill once a moon now i could kill with my own hands asking no help of and also i have wished the sun to shine in the middle of the rains and the rains to cover the sun in the deep i the second book of summer and also i have never gone empty but i wished that i had killed a goat and also i have never killed a goat but i wished it had been buck nor buck but i wished it had been but thus do we feel all of us thou hast no other desire the big snake demanded what more can i wish i have the and the favor of the is there more anywhere between sunrise and sunset now the said began what he that went away just now said nothing he was hunting it was another hast thou many dealings with the poison people i give them their own path they carry death in the fore tooth and that is not good for they are so small but what hood is this thou hast spoken with rolled slowly in the water like a steamer in a beam sea three or four since said he i hunted in cold which place thou hast not forgotten and the thing i hunted fled shrieking past the and to that house whose side i once broke for thy sake and ran into the ground but the people of cold do not live in the king s knew that was talking of the monkey people this thing was not living but seeking to live replied with a quiver of his tongue he ran into a that led very far i followed and having killed i slept when i i went forward under the earth even so coming at last upon a white hood a white who spoke of things beyond my knowledge and showed me many things i had never before seen new game was it good hunting turned quickly on his side it was no game and would have broken all my teeth but the white hood said that a man he spoke as one that knew the breed that a man would give the breath under his ribs for only the sight of those things we will look said i now remember that i was once a man slowly slowly it was haste killed the yellow snake that ate the sun we two spoke together under the earth and i spoke of thee thee as a man said the white hood and he is indeed as old as the it is long since i have seen a man let him come and he x i the second book shall see all these things for the least of which very many men would die that	39
be new game and yet the poison people do not tell us when game is they are an folk it is not game it is it is i cannot say what it is we will go there i have never seen a white hood and i wish to see the other things did he kill them they are all dead things he says he is the keeper of them all ah as a wolf stands above meat he has taken to his own let us go swam to bank rolled on the grass to dry himself and the two set off for cold the deserted city of which you may have heard was not the least afraid of the monkey people in those days but the monkey people had the horror of their tribes however were in the and so cold stood empty and silent in the moonlight led up to the ruins of the queen s that stood on the terrace slipped over the rubbish and down the half choked staircase that went from the of the gave the snake call we the king s be of one blood ye and i and followed on his hands and knees they crawled a long distance down a sloping passage that turned and twisted several times and at last came to where the root of some great tree growing thirty feet overhead had forced out a solid stone in the wall they crept through the gap and found themselves in a large vault whose roof had been also broken away by tree roots so that a few streaks of light dropped down into the darkness a safe said rising to his firm feet but over far to visit daily and now what do we see am i nothing said a voice in the middle of the vault and saw something white move till little by little there stood up the he had ever set eyes on a creature nearly eight feet long and by being in darkness to an old ivory white even the of his spread hood had faded to faint yellow his eyes were as red as and altogether he was most wonderful good hunting said who carried his manners with his knife and that never left him what of my city said the white i the second book without answering the greeting what of the great the walled city the city of a hundred and twenty thousand horses and cattle past counting the city of the king of twenty kings i grow deaf here and it is long since i heard their war the is above our heads said i know only and his sons among has slain all the horses in one village and what is a king i told thee said softly to the i told thee four ago that thy city was not the city the great city of the forest whose gates are guarded by the kings towers can never pass they it before my father s father came from the and it shall endure when my son s sons are as white as i son of son of son of made it in the days of whose cattle are ye it is a lost trail said turning to i know not his talk nor i he is very old father of there is only the here as it has been since the beginning then who is said the white sit the s ting down before me knowing not the name of the king talking our talk through a man s lips who is he with the knife and the snake s tongue they call me was the answer i am of the the wolves are my people and here is my brother father of who art thou i am the of the king s treasure the stone above me in the days when my skin was dark that i might teach death to those who came to steal then they let down the treasure through the stone and i heard the song of the my masters said to himself i have dealt with one already in the man pack and i know what i know evil comes here in a little five times since i came here has the stone been lifted but always to let down more and never to take away there are no riches like these riches the treasures of a hundred kings but it is long and long since the stone was last moved and i think that my city has forgotten there is no city look up yonder are roots of the great trees tearing the stones apart trees and men do not grow together insisted i the second book twice and thrice have men found their way here the white answered savagely but they never spoke till i came upon them groping in the dark and then they cried only a little time but ye come with lies man and snake both and would have me believe the city is not and that my ends little do men change in the years but change never till the stone is lifted and the come down singing the songs that i know and feed me with warm milk and take me to the light again i i and no other am the of the king s treasure the city is dead ye say and here are the roots of the trees stoop down then and take what ye will earth has no treasure like to these man with the snake s tongue if thou go alive by the way that thou hast entered at the lesser kings will be thy servants again the trail is lost said coolly can any have so deep and bitten this great white hood he is surely mad father of i see nothing here to take away by the	39
gods of the sun and moon it is the madness of death upon the boy the before thine eyes close i will allow thee this favor look thou and see what man has never seen before the king s they do not well in the who speak to of said the boy between his teeth but the dark changes all as i know i will look if that please thee he stared with up eyes round the vault and then lifted up from the floor a handful of something that glittered said he this is like the stuff they play with in the man pack only this is yellow and the other was brown he let the gold pieces fall and moved forward the floor of the vault was buried some five or six feet deep in gold and silver that had burst from the it had been originally stored in and in the long years the metal had packed and settled as sand at low tide on it and in it and rising through it as lift through the sand were elephant of silver studded with plates of gold and adorned with and there were and for carrying queens framed and with silver and with handled poles and curtain rings there were golden hung with pierced that quivered on the branches there were studded images five feet high of forgotten gods silver with eyes there were coats the second book of mail gold on steel and fringed with and blackened seed pearls there were and with pigeon s blood there were of of and hide and with red gold and set with at the edge there were of diamond swords and hunting knives there were golden and and of a shape that never see the light of day there were cups and there were and pots for perfume and eye powder all in gold there were nose rings head bands finger rings and past any counting there were seven fingers broad of square cut diamonds and and wooden boxes with iron from which the wood had fallen away in powder showing the pile of star cat diamonds and within the white was right no mere money would begin to pay the value of this treasure the of centuries of war plunder trade and the alone were leaving out of count all the precious stones and the dead weight of the gold and silver alone might the king s n be two or three hundred tons every native ruler in india to day however poor has a to which he is always adding and though once in a long while some enlightened prince may send off forty or fifty loads of silver to be exchanged for government the bulk of them keep their treasure and the knowledge of it very closely to themselves but naturally did not understand what these things meant the knives interested him a little but they did not balance so well as his own and so he dropped them at last he found something really fascinating laid on the front of a half buried in the it was a three foot or elephant something like a small boat hook the top was one round shining and twelve inches of the handle below it were studded with rough close together giving a most satisfactory grip below the second book them was a rim of with a flower pattern running round it only the leaves were and the blossoms were sunk in the cool green stone the rest of the handle was a shaft of pure ivory while the point the and hook was gold steel with pictures of elephant catching and the pictures attracted who saw that they had something to do with his friend the silent the white had been following him closely is this not worth dying to behold he said have i not done thee a great favor i do not understand said the things are hard and cold and by no means good to eat but this he lifted the i desire to take away that i may see it in the sun thou they are all thine wilt thou give it to me and i will bring thee to eat the white fairly shook with evil delight assuredly i will give it he said all that is here i will give thee till thou away but i go now this place is dark and cold and i wish to take the thorn pointed thing to tlie look by thy foot what is that there picked up something white and smooth the king s i it is the bone of a man s head he said quietly and here are two more they came to take the treasure away many years ago i spoke to them in the dark and they lay still but what do i need of this that is called treasure if thou wilt give me the to take away it is good hunting if not it is good hunting none the less i do not fight with the poison people and i was also taught the master word of thy tribe there is but one master word here it is mine flung himself forward with blazing eyes who bade me bring the man he i surely the old it is long since i have seen man and this man speaks our tongue but there was no talk of killing how can i go to the and say that i have led him to his death said i talk not of killing till the time and as to thy going or not going there is the hole in the wall peace now thou fat monkey i have but to touch thy neck and the will know thee no longer never man came here that went away with the breath under his ribs i the second book am the of the treasure of the	39
king s city but thou white worm of the dark i tell thee there is neither king nor city the is all about us cried there is still the treasure but this can be done wait a while of the rocks and see the boy run there is room for great sport here life is good run to and fro a while and make sport boy put his hand on s head quietly the white thing has dealt with men of the man pack until now he does not know me he whispered he has asked for this hunting let him have it had been standing with the held point down he flung it from him quickly and it dropped just behind the great snake s hood him to the floor in a flash s weight was upon the body it from hood to tail the red eyes burned and the six spare inches of the head struck furiously right and left kill said as s hand went to his knife no he said as he drew the blade i will never kill again save for food but look you he caught the snake behind the hood the king s forced the mouth open with the blade of the knife and showed the terrible poison of the upper jaw lying black and withered in the the white had his poison as a snake will it is dried up said and away he picked up the setting the white free the kings treasure needs a new he said gravely thou hast not done well run to and fro and make sport i am ashamed kill me the white there has been too much talk of killing we will go now i take the thorn pointed thing because i have fought and thee see then that the thing does not kill thee at last it is death remember it is death there is enough in that thing to kill the men of all my city not long wilt thou hold it man nor he who takes it from thee they will kill and kill and kill for its sake my strength is dried up but the will do my work it is death i it is death it is death crawled out through the hole into the literally a out tree stump the second book passage again and the last that he saw was the white striking furiously with his harmless at the stolid golden faces of the gods that lay on the floor and hissing it is death they were glad to get to the light of day once more and when they were back in their own and made the glitter in the morning light he was almost as pleased as though he had found a bunch of new flowers to stick in his hair this is brighter than s eyes he said as he the i will show it to him but what did the mean when he talked of death i cannot say i am sorrowful to my tail s tail that he felt not thy knife there is always evil at cold above ground or below but now i am hungry dost thou hunt with me this dawn said no must see this thing good hunting danced off flourishing the great and stopping from time to time to admire it till he came to that part of the chiefly used and found him drinking after a heavy kill told him all his adventures from beginning to end and at the between when the king s came to the white s last words the then the white hood spoke the thing which is asked quickly i was born in the king s at and it is in my stomach that i know some little of man very many men would kill thrice in a night for the that one big red stone alone but the stone makes it heavy to the hand my little bright knife is better and see the red stone is not good to eat then why would they kill go thou and sleep thou hast lived among men and i remember men kill because they are not hunting for idleness and pleasure wake again for what use was this thing made half opened his eyes he was very sleepy with a malicious twinkle it was made by men to thrust into the head of the sons of so that the blood should pour out i have seen the like in the street of before our that thing has tasted the blood of many such as but why do they thrust into the heads of i o the second book to teach them man s law having neither claws nor teeth men make these things and worse always more blood when i come near even to the things the man pack have made said he was getting a little tired of the weight of the if i had known this i would not have taken it first it was s blood on the and now it is s i will use it no more look the flew sparkling and buried itself point down thirty yards away between the trees so my hands are clean of death said rubbing his palms on the fresh moist earth the said death would follow me he is old and white and mad white or black or death or life am going to sleep little brother i cannot hunt all night and howl all day as do some folk went off to a hunting that he knew about two miles off made an easy way for himself up a convenient tree knotted three or four together and in less time than it takes to tell was swinging in a fifty feet above ground though he had no positive objection to strong daylight followed the custom of his friends and used it as the	39
king s i i little as he could when he among the very loud that live in the trees it was twilight once more and he had been dreaming of the beautiful pebbles he had thrown away at least i will look at the thing again he said and slid down a to the earth but was before him could hear him in the half light where is the thorn pointed thing cried a man has taken it here is the trail now we shall see whether the spoke truth if the pointed thing is death that man will die let us follow kill first said an empty stomach makes a careless eye men go very slowly and the is wet enough to hold the mark they killed as soon as they could but it was nearly three hours before they finished their meat and drink and down to the trail the people know that nothing makes up for being hurried over your meals think you the pointed thing will turn in the man s hand and kill him asked the said it was death the second book we shall see when we find said trotting with his head low it is single foot he meant that there was only one man and the weight of the thing has pressed his heel far into the ground hai this is as clear as summer lightning answered and they fell into the quick trail trot in and out through the of the moonlight following the marks of those two bare feet now he runs swiftly said the toes are spread apart they went on over some wet ground now why does he turn aside here wait said and flung himself forward with one superb bound as far as ever he could the first thing to do when a trail ceases to explain itself is to cast forward without leaving your own foot marks on the ground turned as he landed and faced crying here comes another trail to meet him it is a smaller foot this second trail and the toes turn inward then ran up and looked it is the foot of a hunter he said look here he dragged his bow on the grass that is why the first trail turned aside so quickly big foot hid from little foot the king s that is true said now lest by crossing each other s tracks we foul the signs let each take one trail i am big foot little brother and thou art little foot the leaped back to the original trail leaving stooping above the curious narrow track of the wild little man of the woods now said moving step by step along the chain of i big foot turn aside here now i hide me behind a rock and stand still not daring to shift my feet cry thy trail little brother now i little foot come to the rock said running up his trail now i sit down under the rock leaning upon my right hand and resting my bow between my toes i wait long for the mark of my feet is deep here i also said hidden behind the rock i wait resting the end of the thing upon a stone it slips for here is a scratch upon the stone cry thy trail little brother one two twigs and a big branch are broken here said in an now how shall i cry ah it is plain now i little foot go away making noises and so that big foot may hear me he moved away i the second book from the rock pace by pace among the trees his voice rising in the distance as he approached a little i go far away to where the noise of falling water covers my noise and here i wait cry thy trail big foot the had been casting in every direction to see how big foot s trail led away from behind the rock then he gave tongue i come from behind the rock upon my knees dragging the thorn pointed thing seeing no one i run i big foot run swiftly the trail is clear let each follow his own i run swept on along the clearly marked trail and followed the steps of the for some time there was silence in the where art thou little foot cried s voice answered him not fifty yards to the right um said the with a deep cough the two run side by side drawing nearer they on another half mile always keeping about the same distance till whose head was not so close to the ground as s cried they have met good hunting look here stood little foot with his knee on a rock and yonder is big foot indeed the king s not ten yards in front of them stretched across a pile of broken rocks lay the body of a of the district a long small arrow through his back and breast was the so old and so mad little brother said gently here is one death at least follow on but where is the of elephant s blood the red eyed thorn little foot has it perhaps it is again now the single trail of a light man who had been running quickly and bearing a burden on his left shoulder held on round a long low spur of dried grass where each seemed to the sharp eyes of the marked in hot iron neither spoke till the trail ran up to the ashes of a camp fire hidden in a again said checking as though he had been turned into stone the body of a little lay with its feet in the ashes and looked at that was done with a said the boy after one glance i have used	39
draw the bow bid the arrow go in the empty mocking thicket plunge the spear the second book but thy hands are and weak and the blood has left thy cheek it is fear o little hunter it is fear when the heat cloud the tempest when the pine trees fall when the blinding rain lash and through the war of the thunder rings a voice more loud than all it is fear o little hunter it is fear i now the are and deep now the leap now the lightning shows each leaf clear but thy throat is shut and dried and thy heart against thy side fear o little hunter this is fear the people of the eastern ice they are melting like the snow they beg for coffee and sugar they go where the white men go the people of the western ice they learn to steal and fight they sell their to the trading post they sell their souls to the white the people of the southern ice they trade with the s crew their women have many ribbons but their tents are torn and few but the people of the elder ice beyond the white man s ken their are made of the horn and they are the last of the men i translation e has opened his eyes look put him in the skin again he will be a strong dog on the fourth month we will name him for whom said s eye rolled round the skin lined snow house till it fell on fourteen sitting on the sleeping bench making a button out of ivory name him for me said with a grin i shall need him one day grinned back till his eyes were almost the second book buried in the fat of his flat cheeks and nodded to while the s fierce mother to see her baby far out of reach in the little hung above the warmth of the lamp went on with his carving and threw a rolled bundle of leather dog into a tiny little room that opened from one side of the house slipped off his heavy hunting suit put it into a net that hung above another lamp and dropped down on the sleeping bench to at a piece of frozen seal meat till his wife should bring the regular dinner of boiled meat and blood soup he had been out since early dawn at the seal holes eight miles away and had come home with three big seal down the long low snow passage or that led to the inner door of the house you could hear and as the dogs of his team released from the day s work for warm places when the grew too loud lazily rolled off the sleeping bench and picked up a whip with an eighteen inch handle of and twenty five feet of heavy he into the passage where it sounded as though all the dogs were eating him alive but that was no more than their regular grace before meals when he crawled out at the far end half a dozen heads followed him with their eyes as he went to a sort of gallows of whale from which the dogs meat was hung split off the frozen stuff in big with a broad headed spear and stood his whip in one hand and the meat in the other each beast was called by name the first and woe any dog that moved out of his turn for the lash would shoot out like lightning and away an inch or so of hair and hide each beast growled snapped choked once over his portion and hurried back to the protection of the passage while the boy stood upon the snow under the blazing northern lights and dealt out justice the last to be served was the big black leader of the team who kept order when the dogs were and to him gave a double allowance of meat as well as an extra crack of the whip ah said up the lash i have a little one over the lamp that will make a great many get in he crawled back over the huddled dogs the dry snow from his with the the second book that kept by the door tapped the skin lined roof of the house to shake off any that might have fallen from the dome of snow above and curled up on the bench the dogs in the passage and in their sleep the boy baby in s deep fur hood kicked and choked and and the mother of the newly named lay at s side her eyes fixed on the bundle of warm and safe above the broad yellow flame of the lamp and all this happened far away to the north beyond beyond s strait where the great tides heave the ice about north of north even of the narrow fury and straits on the north shore of land where s island stands above the ice of sound like a bowl wrong side up north of sound there is little we know anything about except north and land but even there live a few scattered people next door as it were to the very pole was an what you call an and his tribe some thirty persons all told belonged to the the country lying at the back of something in the maps that desolate coast is written navy board but the name is best because the country lies at the very back of everything in the world for nine months of the year there is only ice snow and gale after gale with a cold that no one can realize who has never seen the even at for six months of those nine it is dark and that is what makes it so horrible in the	39
three months of the summer it only every other day and every night and then the snow begins to weep off on the slopes and a few ground put out their a tiny or so makes believe to blossom of fine gravel and rounded stones run down to the open sea and polished and rocks lift up above the snow but all that is gone in a few weeks and the wild winter locks down again on the land while at sea the ice tears up and down the and and and and and till it all together ten feet thick from the land outward to deep water in the winter would follow the seal to the edge of this land ice and spear them as they came up to breathe at their blow holes the seal must have open water to live and catch the second book fish in and in the deep of winter the ice would sometimes run eighty miles without a break from the nearest shore in the spring he and his people retreated from the to the rocky where they put up tents of skins and the sea birds or the young seal on the later they would go south into land after the and to get their year s store of salmon from the hundreds of streams and lakes of the interior coming back north in september or october for the ox hunting and the regular winter this was done with dog twenty and thirty miles a day or sometimes down the coast in big skin woman boats when the dogs and the babies lay among the feet of the and the women sang songs as they glided from cape to cape over the cold waters all the luxuries that the knew came from the south for rod iron for tips steel knives tin that cooked food much better than the old affairs flint and steel and even matches as well as colored ribbons for the women s hair little cheap and red cloth for the of dress the rich twisted horn and ox teeth these are just as valuable as pearls to the southern and they in turn with the and the missionary posts of and sounds and so the chain went on till a kettle picked up by a ship s cook in the might end its days over a somewhere on the cool side of the circle being a good hunter was rich in iron snow knives bird and all the other things that make life easy up there in the great cold and he was the head of this tribe or as they say the man who knows all about it by practice this did not give him any authority except now and then he could advise his friends to change their hunting grounds but used it to a little in the lazy fat fashion over the other boys when they came out at night to play ball in the moonlight or to sing the child s song to the but at fourteen an feels himself a man and was tired of making for wild fowl and and most tired of all of helping the women to seal and that them as nothing else can the long day through while the men were out hunting he wanted to go into the the singing house the second book when the hunters gathered there for their mysteries and the the frightened them into the most fits after the lamps were put out and you could hear the spirit of the stamping on the roof and when a spear was thrust out into the open black night it came back covered with hot blood he wanted to throw his big boots into the net with the tired air of a head of a family and to with the hunters when they dropped in of an evening and played a sort of home made with a tin pot and a nail there were hundreds of things that he wanted to do but the grown men laughed at him and said wait till you have been in the hunting is not all catching now that his father had named a for him things looked brighter an does not waste a good dog on his son till the boy knows something of dog driving and was more than sure that he knew more than everything if the had not had an iron constitution he would have died from over and made him a tiny harness with a trace to it and hauled him all over the house floor shouting go to the right go to the left stop the did not like it at all but being for in this way was pure happiness beside being put to the for the first time he just sat down on the snow and played with the seal hide trace that ran from his harness to the the big in the bows of the then the team started and the found the heavy ten foot running up his back and dragging him along the snow while laughed till the tears ran down his face there followed days and days of the cruel whip that like the wind over ice and his companions all bit him because he did not know his work and the harness him and he was not allowed to sleep with any more but had to take the place in the passage it was a sad time for the the boy learned too as fast as the dog though a dog is a thing to manage each beast is the nearest to the driver by his own separate trace which runs under his left fore leg to the main where it is fastened by a sort of button and which can be slipped by a turn of the wrist thus one dog at a time this is very necessary because young dogs often get	39
were used to fish in winter lay perhaps twenty miles beyond this barrier and out of reach of the even so they might have managed to scrape through the winter on their stock of frozen salmon and stored and what the traps gave them but in december one of their hunters came across a a skin tent of three women and a girl nearly dead whose men had come down from the far north and been crushed in their little skin hunting boats while they were out after the long of course could only the women among the huts of the winter village for no dare refuse a meal to a stranger he never knows when his own turn may come to beg took the girl who was about fourteen into her own house as a sort of servant from the cut of her hood and the long diamond pattern of her white they supposed she came from land she had never seen tin cooking pots or wooden shod before but the boy and the dog were rather fond of her then all the went south and even the that growling blunt headed little thief of the snow did not take the trouble to follow the line of empty traps that set the tribe lost a couple of their best hunters who were badly crippled in a fight with a ox and this threw more work on the others went out day after day with a light hunting and six or seven of the strongest dogs looking till his eyes ached for some patch of clear ice where a seal might perhaps have scratched a breathing hole the dog ranged far and wide and in the dead stillness of the ice fields the boy could hear his half choked of excitement above a seal hole three miles away as plainly as though he were at his elbow when the dog found a hole the boy would build himself a little low snow wall to keep off the worst of the bitter wind and there he would wait ten twelve twenty hours for the seal to come up io the second book to breathe his eyes to the tiny mark he had made above the hole to guide the downward thrust of his a little mat under his feet and his legs tied together in the the that the old hunters had talked about this helps to keep a man s legs from as he waits and waits and waits for the quick seal to rise though there is no excitement in it you can easily believe that the sitting still in the with the perhaps forty degrees below is the hardest work an knows when a seal was caught the dog would bound forward his trace trailing behind him and help to pull the body to the where the tired and hungry dogs lay sullenly under the lee of the broken ice a seal did not go very far for each mouth in the little village had a right to be filled and neither bone hide nor was wasted the dogs meat was taken for human use and fed the team with pieces of old summer out from under the sleeping bench and they howled and howled again and to howl one could tell by the lamps in the huts that famine was near in good seasons when was plentiful the light in the boat shaped lamps would be two feet high cheerful and yellow now it was a bare six inches carefully pricked down the moss when an flame brightened for a moment and the eyes of all the family followed her hand the horror of famine up there in the great cold is not so much dying as dying in the dark all the dread the dark that presses on them without a break for six months in each year and when the lamps are low in the houses the minds of people begin to be shaken and confused but worse was to come the dogs snapped and growled in the passages glaring at the cold stars and into the bitter wind night after night when they stopped howling the silence fell down again as solid and as heavy as a against a door and men could hear the beating of their blood in the thin passages of the ear and the of their own hearts that sounded as loud as the noise of drums beaten across the snow one night the dog who had been unusually sullen in harness leaped up and pushed his head against s knee patted him but the dog still pushed blindly forward then the second book and the heavy wolf like head and stared into the eyes the dog and shivered between s knees the hair rose about his neck and he growled as though a stranger were at the door then he and rolled on the ground and bit at s boot like a what is it said for he was beginning to be afraid the sickness answered it is the dog sickness the dog lifted his nose and howled and howled again i have not seen this before what will he do said shrugged one shoulder a little and crossed the hut for his short the big dog looked at him howled again and away down the passage while the other dogs drew aside right and left to give him ample room when he was out on the snow he furiously as though on the trail of a ox and barking and leaping and passed out of sight this was not but simple plain madness the cold and the hunger and above all the dark had turned his head and when the terrible dog sickness once shows itself in a team it like next ii hunting day another dog and was killed then and there by as he bit and struggled among the traces then the black second dog	39
who had been the leader in the old days suddenly gave tongue on an imaginary and when they slipped him from the t flew at the throat of an ice cliff and ran away as his leader had done his harness on his back after that no one would take the dogs out again they needed them for something else and the dogs knew it and though they were tied down and fed by hand their eyes were full of despair and fear to make things worse the old women began to tell ghost tales and to say that they had met the spirits of the dead hunters lost that autumn who all sorts of horrible things grieved more for the loss of his dog than anything else for though an eats he also knows how to starve but the hunger the darkness the cold and the exposure told on his strength and he began to hear voices inside his head and to see people who were not there out of the tail of his eye one night he had himself after ten hours waiting above a blind seal hole and was staggering back to the village faint and dizzy is the second book he halted to lean his back against a which happened to be supported like a on a single point of ice his weight disturbed the balance of the thing it rolled over and as sprang aside to avoid it slid after him and hissing on the ice slope that was enough for he had been brought up to believe that every rock and had its owner its who was generally a one eyed kind of a woman thing called a and that when a meant to help a man she rolled after him inside her stone house and asked him whether he would take her for a guardian spirit in summer the ice propped rocks and roll and slip all over the face of the land so you can easily see how the idea of live stones arose heard the blood beating in his ears as he had heard it all day and he thought that was the of the stone speaking to him before he reached home he was quite certain that he had held a long conversation with her and as all his people believed that this was quite possible no one contradicted him she said to me i jump down i jump down from my place on the snow cried with hollow eyes leaning forward in the half lighted hut she said i will be a guide she says i will guide you to the good seal holes tomorrow i go out and the will guide me then the the village came in and told him the tale a second time it lost nothing in the telling follow the the spirits of the stones and they will bring us food again said the now the girl from the north had been lying near the lamp eating very little and saying less for days past but when and next morning packed and lashed a little hand for and loaded it with his hunting gear and as much and frozen seal meat as they could spare she took the rope and stepped out boldly at the boy s side your house is my house she said as the little bone shod and behind them in the awful night my house is your house said but think that we shall both go to together now is the mistress of the under world and the believe that every one who dies must spend a year in her horrible country before going to the happy place where i the second book it never and the fat trot up when you call through the village people were shouting the have spoken to they will show him open ice he will bring us the seal again their voices were soon swallowed up by the cold empty dark and and the girl shouldered close together as they strained on the pulling rope or the through the broken ice in the direction of the sea insisted that the of the stone had told him to go north and north they went under the those stars that we call the great bear no european could have made five miles a day over the ice rubbish and the sharp edged but those two knew exactly the turn of the wrist that a round a the jerk that neatly lifts it out of an ice crack and the exact strength that goes to the few quiet strokes of the spear head that make a path possible when everything looks hopeless the girl said nothing but bowed her head and the long fur fringe of her hood blew across her broad dark face the sky above them was an intense black changing to bands of indian red on the horizon where the great stars burned like street lamps from time to time a wave of the northern lights would roll across the hollow of the high heavens like a flag and disappear or a would from darkness to darkness trailing a shower of sparks behind then they could see the and surface of the tipped and with strange colors red copper and but in the ordinary everything turned to one frost bitten gray the as you will remember had been battered and tormented by the autumn till it was one frozen earthquake there were and and holes like gravel cut in ice and scattered pieces frozen down to the original floor of the of old black ice that had been thrust under the in some gale and heaved up again of ice edges of ice carved by the snow that flies before the wind and sunken where thirty or forty acres lay below the level of the rest of the field from a little distance you might have taken the for	39
seal or or men on a hunting expedition or even the great ten legged white spirit bear himself but in spite of these fantastic shapes all on the very edge of starting into life there was neither i the second book sound nor the least faint echo of sound and through this silence and through this waste where the sudden lights and went out again the and the two that pulled it crawled like things in a nightmare a nightmare of the end of the world at the end of the world when they were tired would make what the hunters call a half house a very small snow hut into which they would with the lamp and try to out the frozen when they had slept the march began again thirty miles a day to get ten miles northward the girl was always very silent but muttered to himself and broke out into songs he had learned in the singing house summer songs and and salmon songs all horribly out of place at that season he would declare that he heard the growling to him and would run wildly up a tossing his arms and speaking in loud threatening tones to tell the truth was very nearly crazy for the time being but the girl was sure that he was being guided by his guardian spirit and that everything would come right she was not surprised therefore when at the end of the fourth march whose eyes were burning like fire balls in his head told her that his was following them across the snow in the shape of a two headed dog the girl looked where pointed and something seemed to slip into a it was certainly not human but everybody knew that the preferred to appear in the shape of bear and seal and such like it might have been the ten legged white spirit bear himself or it might have been anything for and the girl were so starved that their eyes were they had nothing and seen no trace of game since they had left the village their food would not hold out for another week and there was a gale coming a storm can blow for ten days without a break and all that while it is certain death to be abroad laid up a large enough to take in the hand never be separated from your meat and while he was the last irregular block of ice that makes the key stone of the roof he saw a thing looking at him from a little cliff of ice half a mile away the air was and the thing seemed to be forty feet long and ten feet high with twenty feet of tail and a shape that quivered all along the outlines the girl saw it too but instead of crying aloud with terror the second book said quietly that is what comes after he will speak to me said but the snow knife trembled in his hand as he spoke because however much a man may believe that he is a friend of strange and ugly spirits he seldom likes to be taken quite at his word too is the phantom of a gigantic dog without any hair who is supposed to live in the far north and to wander about the country just before things are going to happen they may be pleasant or unpleasant things but not even the care to speak about he makes the dogs go mad like the spirit bear he has several extra pairs of legs six or eight and this thing jumping up and down in the haze had more legs than any real dog needed and the girl huddled into their hut quickly of course if had wanted them he could have torn it to pieces above their heads but the sense of a foot thick snow wall between themselves and the wicked dark was great comfort the gale broke with a shriek of wind like the shriek of a train and for three days and three nights it held never varying one point and never even for a minute they fed the stone lamp between their knees and at the half warm seal meat and watched the black gather oh the roof for seventy two long hours the girl counted up the food in the there was not more than two days supply and looked over the iron heads and the deer of his and his seal lance and his bird dart there was nothing else to do we shall go to soon very soon the girl whispered in three days we shall lie down and go will your do nothing sing her an s song to make her come here he began to sing in the high pitched howl of the magic songs and the gale went down slowly in the middle of his song the girl started laid her hand and then her head to the ice floor of the hut followed her example and the two staring into each other s eyes and listening with every nerve he a thin of from the rim of a that lay on the and after set it upright in a little hole in the ice it down with his it was almost as delicately adjusted as a compass needle and now instead of listening they watched the thin rod quivered a little the least little jar in the world then it steadily for a few seconds the second book came to rest and again this time nodding to another point of the compass too soon said some big has broken far away outside the girl pointed at the rod and shook her head it is the big breaking she said listen to the ground ice it when they this time they heard the most curious muffled and apparently under their feet sometimes it sounded as	39
though a blind were above the lamp then as if a stone were being ground on hard ice and again like muffled blows on a drum but all dragged out and made small as though they through a little horn a weary distance away we shall not go to lying down said it is the breaking the has cheated us we shall die all this may sound absurd enough but the two were face to face with a very real danger the three days gale had driven the deep water of s bay and piled it on to the edge of the far reaching land ice that stretches from s island to the west also the strong current which sets east out of sound carried with it mile upon mile of what they call pack ice rough ice that has not frozen into fields and this pack was the at the same time that the swell and heave of the sea was and it what and the girl had been listening to were the faint echoes of that fight thirty or forty miles away and the little rod quivered to the shock of it now as the say when the ice once wakes after its long winter sleep there is no knowing what may happen for solid ice changes shape almost as quickly as a cloud the gale was evidently a spring gale sent out of time and anything was possible yet the two were happier in their minds than before if the broke up there would be no more waiting and suffering spirits and witch people were moving about on the ice and they might find themselves stepping into s country side by side with all sorts of wild things the flush of excitement still on them when they left the hut after the gale the noise on the horizon was steadily growing and the tough ice moaned and all round them it is still waiting said on the top of a sat or crouched the the second book eight legged thing that they had seen three days before and it howled horribly let us follow said the girl it may know some way that does not lead to but she from weakness as she took the the thing moved off slowly and across the heading always toward the westward and the land and they followed while the growling thunder at the edge of the rolled nearer and nearer the s lip was split and cracked in every direction for three or four miles inland and great of ten foot thick ice from a few yards to twenty acres square were and and into one another and into the yet unbroken as the heavy swell took and shook and between them this ram ice was so to speak the first army that the sea was flinging against the the incessant crash and jar of these cakes almost drowned the sound of sheets of pack ice driven bodily under the as cards are hastily pushed under a table cloth where the water was shallow these sheets would be piled one of the other till the bottom most touched mud fifty feet down and the sea behind the muddy ice till the increasing pressure drove all forward again in t addition to the and the pack ice the gale and the currents were bringing down true sailing mountains of ice snapped from the side of the water or the north shore of bay they in solemnly the waves breaking white round them and advanced on the like an old time fleet under full sail a that seemed ready to carry the world before it would ground helplessly in deep water over and in a of foam and mud and flying frozen spray while a much smaller and lower one would and ride into the flat flinging tons of ice on either side and cutting a track half a mile long before it was stopped some fell like swords a raw edged canal and others into a shower of blocks weighing scores of tons apiece that whirled and among the others again rose up bodily out of the water when they twisted as though in pain and fell on their sides while the sea over their shoulders this and crowding and bending and and of the ice into every possible shape was going on as far as the eye could reach all along the north line of the from where and the girl were the confusion looked no more than an un the second book easy rippling crawling movement under the horizon but it came toward them each moment and they could hear far away to a heavy as it might have been the boom of through a fog that showed that the was being home against the iron cliffs of s island the land to the southward behind them this has never been before said staring this is not the time how can the break now follow that the girl cried pointing to the thing half half running before them they followed at the while nearer and nearer came the roaring march of the ice at last the fields round them cracked and in every direction and the cracks opened and snapped like the teeth of wolves but where the thing rested on a mound of old and scattered ice blocks some fifty feet high there was no motion leaped forward wildly dragging the girl after him and crawled to the bottom of the mound the talking of the ice grew louder and louder round them but the mound stayed fast and as the girl looked at him he threw his right elbow upward and outward making the sign for land in the shape of an island and land it was that the eight legged thing had led them to some granite tipped sand the coast shod and and with ice so that no man could have told	39
it from the but at the bottom solid earth and not shifting ice the and of the as they and marked the borders of it and a friendly ran out to the northward and turned aside the rush of the heaviest ice exactly as a turns over there was danger of course that some heavily squeezed ice field might shoot up the beach and plane off the top of the bodily but that did not trouble and the girl when they made their snow house and began to eat and heard the ice hammer and along the beach the thing had disappeared and was talking excitedly about his power over spirits as he crouched round the lamp in the middle of his wild sayings the girl began to laugh and rock herself backward and forward behind her shoulder crawling into the hut crawl by crawl there were two heads one yellow and one black that belonged to two of the most sorrowful and ashamed dogs that ever you saw the dog was one and the black the second book leader was the other both were now fat and quite restored to their proper minds but coupled to each other in an extraordinary fashion when the black leader ran off you remember his harness was still on him he must have met the dog and played or fought with him for his shoulder had caught in the copper wire of s collar and had drawn tight so that neither could get at the trace to it apart but each was fastened to his neighbor s neck that with the freedom of hunting on their own account must have helped to cure their madness they were very sober the girl pushed the two creatures toward and sobbing with laughter cried that is who led us to safe ground look at his eight legs and double head cut them free and they fell into his arms yellow and black together trying to explain how they had got their senses back again ran a hand down their ribs which were round and well clothed they have found food he said with a grin i do not think we shall go to so soon my sent these the sickness has left them as soon as they had greeted these two who had been forced to sleep and eat and hunt together for the past few weeks flew at each other s throat and there was a beautiful battle in the snow house empty dogs do not fight said they have found the seal let us sleep we shall find food when they there was open water on the north beach of the island and all the loosened ice had been driven the first sound of the surf is one of the most delightful that the can hear for it means that spring is on the road and the girl took hold of hands and smiled for the clear full roar of the among the ice reminded them of salmon and time and the smell of ground even as they looked the sea began to over between the floating cakes of ice so intense was the cold but on the horizon there was a vast red glare and that was the light of the sunken sun it was more like hearing him in his sleep than seeing him rise and the glare only lasted for a few minutes but it marked the turn of the year nothing they felt could alter that found the dogs fighting over a seal who was following the fish that a gale always he was the first of some the second book twenty or thirty seal that landed on the island in the course of the day and till the sea hard there were hundreds of keen black heads rejoicing in the shallow free water and floating about with the floating ice it was good to eat seal liver again to fill the lamps with and watch the flame blaze three feet in the air but as soon as the new sea ice bore and the girl loaded the hand and made the two dogs pull as they had never pulled in their lives for they feared what might have happened in their village the weather was as pitiless as usual but it is easier to draw a loaded with good food than to hunt starving they left five and twenty seal buried in the ice of the beach all ready for use and hurried back to their people the dogs showed them the way as soon as told them what was expected and though there was no sign of a in two days they were giving tongue outside s house only three dogs answered them the others had been eaten and the houses were all dark but when shouted boiled meat weak voices replied and when he called the muster of the village name by name very distinctly there were no in it an hour later the lamps blazed in s house snow water was the pots were beginning to and the snow was dripping from the roof as made ready a meal for all the village and the boy baby in the hood at a strip of rich and the hunters slowly and filled themselves to the very brim with seal meat and the girl told their tale the two dogs sat between them and whenever their names came in they cocked an ear apiece and looked most thoroughly ashamed of themselves a dog who has once gone mad and recovered the say is safe against all further attacks so the did not forget us said the storm blew the ice broke and the seal swam in behind the fish that were frightened by the storm now the new seal holes are not two days distant let the good hunters go to morrow and bring back the seal i have twenty five seal buried in the ice when	39

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