ALIVE IN THE JUNGLE

"Here is the child, Mr. Desborough," cried Oliver. Page 160

Pre-title page

ALIVE
IN THE JUNGLE

A Story for the Young

BY
ELEANOR STREDDER

Author of "Jack and his Ostrich,"
"Archie's Find"
etc.

"In the night, O the night.

When the wolves are howling."

TENNYSON.

T. NELSON AND SONS
London, Edinburgh, and New York
1892

Contents

1. THE OLD GRAY WOLF

2. IN PURSUIT

3. HOW THE SEARCH ENDED

4. THE WOLF'S LAIR

5. NOAK-HOLLY

6. AWAY TO THE HILLS

7. THE RANA'S SONS

8. THE INVITATION

9. OLIVER AND HIS UNCLE

10. A VISIT TO THE RANA'S CASTLE

11. THE FOOTPRINT

12. BEATING THE KOOND

13. CAUGHT IN A TRAP

14. THE HOMEWARD ROAD

15. A LITTLE SAVAGE

16. THE CONCLUSION

ALIVE IN THE JUNGLE.

CHAPTER I.

THE OLD GRAY WOLF.

Night was brooding over the wide and swampy Bengal plain. The moon had sunk low in the west, and was hiding behind a bank of threatening clouds. Darkness and shadow covered the sleeping world around. But the stilly quiet which marked "the darkest hour of all the night" was broken by the fierce growling of a tiger and a buffalo, fighting furiously on the open highroad, within a dozen yards of Mr. Desborough's indigo factory.

The jackal pack were gathering among the distant hills, already scenting their prey. On they came, rushing down the nearest valley in answer to their leader's call—shrieking, wailing, howling in their haste to be in time to pounce upon the tiger's leavings; an ever-increasing wave of sound that startled the weary factory-workers, sleeping in their mud-walled huts under the mango trees. The pack sweep round the straw-thatched sheds belonging to the factory, and gather in front of Mr. Desborough's house.

This was a large one-storied building, looking very much like a Swiss cottage, with its gabled roof and white-painted walls. The broad eaves projected so far beyond the walls that they covered the veranda, which ran right round the house. Like the sheds of the factory, it was thatched. Beautiful climbing plants festooned the columns which supported the veranda, and flung their long trailing arms across the pointed gables. A whole colony of wild birds nestle in the reedy thatch,