was all Yellow Leopard's fault. The fat Sahib swore that he would have the first spear in when I was let out at the time of the hunt. He was for having me killed in the cage; but the Raja said, 'No; his turn will come in the Shikar'; and when the Raja spoke there was an end of all argument.

"'Little Bagheela,' said Yellow Leopard to me, 'we will get away to the jungles together at the hunt time. If they let you out first—never fear, Little One, you will have a start, for that is the Raja's way, we are to have a show for our lives, though I warrant one cannot get very far in five minutes—do you run very fast, and when you have come to the small mud-caves of the Black-kind, hide in the place where the Bullocks are kept. They will not look for you there, and not finding you they will come back, thinking you have gone to the jungles. When I am let out, I, too, will go that way, and together nothing will stand between us and the hills. Should I go first I will wait for you.'

"Then one day a cage that was on wheels was put against the door behind which I was kept, and with bars that were hot they drove me into it. Then I was taken out to the fields, and when the Sahibs—there were many of them—had gone back on the road, the door was opened. Would you believe it, Friends, though I had been eating my heart out behind the bars yonder, now that I had the chance, I was almost afraid to venture on the plain. Even as I crept forth, a yellow-leafed bush suddenly bent in the wind, and I sprang into the air as though it were the charge of a Wild Boar——"

"Listen to that, Friends," grunted Soor; "of all Jungle Dwellers, he has most fear of me."

"But remembering what Yellow Leopard had said, I ran swiftly toward the little village that was between me and the hills; but not straight in the open, mind you—I had not lived by the kill in the jungle for nothing. First I leaped full over a long line of the fierce-pointed aloe bush——"

"Phrut! I know that plant," muttered Hathi; "it has points sharper than the goad of any Mahout. Sore toes! but I know it well."

"Even so," continued Pardus, "I ran swiftly along in the shadow of this, and soon found a Bullock cave such as Yellow Leopard spoke of. In the end the Men-kind could not find me, for I lay still, though once I heard the voice of the fat Sahib quite close, swearing that he longed for a sight of the 'black brute.' That was not my name, for I am Pardus the Panther.

"After a little I heard more shouting; then there was a rustling noise which I knew was the gallop of Yellow Leopard. He was calling as he ran, 'Ehow-Ehow-Hough, Bagheela!' just as we call to our Mates in the jungle.

"'A-Houk! here am I,' I cried, rushing out, thinking that we would soon be safe in the cool jungle again. And away we dashed. By the loss of a Kill! we had not gone far till almost in front of us we saw the fat Sahib and three others on their Horses full in our path.

"'Oh-ho, my Black Beauty!' he cried, when he saw me; 'now we'll wipe out the score.'"

"That's like the Men-kind," growled Raj Bagh, the Tiger; "they cage us and kill us, and if we so much as raise a claw in defence of our lives we are reviled, and they have a score against us to wipe out."