roaming.

He was the very man to help him.

Within the bamboo fence was a tangle of wild roses and creepers, twining about the roots of the luxuriant fruit-trees shading the low mud hut in which the old man lived; a tiny well sparkled like crystal in the rosy light.

The old man was gathering sticks to light his fire in the one clear space beyond his trees.

He threw them to a graceful dusky figure just peeping out of the door of the hut, and came to the sahib's assistance. The shouts of Mr. Desborough's servants, as they hurled about the biggest stones they could raise, had told him only too plainly what had happened.

All the native Bengalese knew well the dangerous propensity of the wolves in May, and guarded their babies with double vigilance.

He knew the hat in the father's hand, and with scant words but many gesticulations tried to make him understand the wolf was probably hiding in one of the coverts near. If they scared her out, she might drop the child; for it was that one dreaded month in all the year when the wolves take home their prey alive to their half-grown cubs.

There was hope in the old man's words, and the father caught at it. Yet he dared not fire into the dwarf cypress, where they all fancied the wolf might be. No; his gun was useless on his shoulder, for he might shoot his child. He could only follow the example of his coolies, and join his shouts to theirs, until they wakened the echoes. Jackal, wolf, and night-hawk had alike disappeared with the rising dawn. Gobur warned him a tiger might yet be moving, as the morning breeze blew cool and fresh after the sultry night.

"Well, Desborough," demanded the cheery voice of an English neighbour, "up with the sunrise, like myself, to catch a mouthful of fresher air after frying indoors all night? But what on earth is all this row?"

The speaker was an English officer who was taking his morning ride betimes, foreseeing still greater heat as the day advanced. He was followed by his syce, or native groom.

"The heat has done it," he exclaimed, as he heard the father's piteous tale. "The streams are drying up among the hills, and the wild beasts are driven to the cultured plains to seek for water. I heard a tiger grunting all night in the river; many may be lingering in the thicket for their mid-day sleep. Poor fellow! you'll see your baby no more."

The kind-hearted major turned his head away, he could not look the distracted father in the face, as he added, "Be a man, Desborough. Thank God for this fresh breeze; it will save your other child—think of that."

But his syce pressed forward, with a low salaam, to the unhappy sahib, to assure him he heard the cry of a child from the grass by the river, pointing as he spoke to a waving forest of graceful feathery blades, full twenty feet high.

"Cries of monkeys!" interrupted his master angrily, provoked to see his poor friend tantalized with hopes which seemed to him so utterly delusive.

He reined in his horse by his side, and tried to reason with him on the probable fate of his child. They passed a group of sleepy vultures, perched upon a boulder stone. If the poor baby had been dropped living amidst the fields, how could it escape destruction? Even Mr. Desborough was afraid to place much trust in the syce's words, with the ever-increasing chattering of monkeys and screaming of birds. He looked at the wide plains around him, and at the great herds of graceful, delicate-limbed, smoke-coloured cattle, which were now being slowly driven out to pasture. For the brief tropical twilight was over, and day had fairly begun. The air was full of cries. The voices of the night had but given place to the myriad voices of the day. Was it possible for any one to distinguish between them? He heard, or seemed as if he heard, the shriek of his child mingling with every sound, and he knew it was not real. He heard it amidst the bellow of the fierce, ungainly-looking buffaloes, who were marching forth in troops from many a native village, followed by flocks of goats and bleating sheep.

With a hope which Mr. Desborough said hoarsely "was no hope," he rallied his men to beat the huge thicket of grass, and drive out any living thing lurking within it. Afraid of hurling stones at a venture into such a tangled mass, the coolies armed themselves with long sticks, which they struck with a sharp, ringing sound on the bark of the nearest trees. A scampering was heard. The grass swayed hither and thither. There was a cry.

"Nothing but the scream of a frightened pig," persisted the major. "It is the very spot for a wild boar's lair."

He reined in his horse, and stationed himself where he could command a good view of the thicket. Mr. Desborough had chosen his post already, on the opposite side, and was watching as if he were all eye, all ear. Old Gobur had gone round to the back of the thicket. Nothing could escape them rushing from it.

"Not too near," shouted the major to his friend. "Have a care for your own life! No one knows yet what it is we have dislodged."

As they watched the heaving grass, another cry arose in the distance, prolonged and hideous. But the friends knew well what it meant. A party of travellers were approaching, and their tired bearers were calling out for a relay of men from the village to come and take their places.

"Ho, coolie, coolie, wallah! ho-o-o-o-o!" seemed to ring through the air from all points, confusing every other sound. Mr. Desborough's eye never moved from the heaving mass before him. Out rushed a whole family of wild pigs—a "sounder," as the major called it. They were led by a grim old boar with giant tusks, the very picture of savage ferocity. He glared around him, ready to charge the enemy who had dared to disturb him. He was followed by pigs of every age and size, from a venerable sow, tottering along from her weight of years, to squealing, squeaking infants, who could scarcely keep pace with their mothers. Oh, the screaming and the grunting, the snorting and chasing, as the whole family of pigs rushed across the opening towards the nearest mango grove or tope!

Aware of the danger of facing such a formidable charge, both gentlemen wheeled round, and prepared to fire if necessary. The major was inwardly groaning for the boar-spear that was standing idle in the corner of his bungalow. He looked up, and perceived the party of travellers coming along one of the narrow paths which divided the rice-fields, just in front of the bristling array of fiery eyes and curling tails. He saw a lady's dandy—that is, a kind of canoe-shaped seat with a canopy—carried on two men's shoulders. There it was in the line of the angry pigs. The danger to the unwary occupants was imminent. The little cavalcade had halted in dismay. The major thought of the naked legs of the bearers, who wore nothing but their white calico waist-cloths and cotton turbans, and galloped to the rescue, firing as he rode, to make the old boar change his course.

The weary bearers shrank back in terror, raising a wild howl for assistance, when a small lad, who was riding a little pony in the rear, pressed forward through the standing rice which had hitherto concealed him, and planted himself in the front of his companions, with no better defence than a huge bough he had broken from the nearest tree.

"Well done, my young hero!" cried the major as he rode up to