hant regiment will go by themselves, just one mahout on
each neck--like you would carry a mouse. Really, they go on their own
honour; because men have no power to control them--only with their
voices. You know Government doesn't permit elephants to be shot, for
anything--only in case one is court-martialled and sentenced to die."

"Don't the mahouts ever punish them?" Skag asked.

"They're not allowed to torture them--never mind what! And men can't
punish elephants any other way--they're not big enough."

Then a voice rolled out of the dust-glamour before them. In quality
and reach and power, it reminded Skag of a marvel voice that used to
call newspapers in the big railway station in Chicago.

"Whose voice?" he asked Horace.

"That's the master-mahout. He calls the elephants; you'll see. He's
the only kind of mahout who ever gets pay for himself."

"How's that?"

"It's what makes the elephant-military a proper department. Only
elephant names on the books; the pay goes to them. The mahout is
always an elephant's servant; he eats from his master, of course. From
the outside it saves a lot of trouble, to be sure."

Skag laughed. From the elephant standpoint, a small Englishman was
conceding a certain amount of convenience to men.

"You see," the boy went on, "an elephant lives anyway more than a
hundred years; and his name stays just like that and draws pay without
changing. Always a mahout's son takes his place, when he gets too old
or dies. I can recall when Mitha Baba's mahout was one of the most
wonderful of them all. Now he has gone old, as they say; and his son
is on her neck."

There was a moment when Skag would have given his soul--almost--if he
might have grown up in India, as this child was growing up; in the
heart of her ancient knowledges--in the breath of her mystic power.
Then a great plain opened before them. It appeared at first glance,
completely full of elephants.

. . . The glamour of sun-drenched dust hung over all.

Looking more closely, Skag saw nothing but elephant ranks toward the
right, and nothing but elephant ranks toward the left; but in the
centre, a large area was covered with separate piles of dunnage, evenly
distributed.

From where he stood toward where the sun would set--a broad division
stretched; and in the middle of this division, a single line of loaded
elephants filed away and away to the horizon.

. . . Skag became oblivious. He was so thralled with t