dly fighter known to the mahouts, was exulting in strength. It was
his joy-song. It came from straight ahead. Mitha Baba answered with a
rollicking squeal. But the wild herd voices were savage--chaotic. Now
Nut Kut's challenge came back--looming. The situation was no longer
absurd.

It meant a fight--an open fight--between the wild herd and the caravan.
The wild herd would never give Mitha Baba over to her own--they would
surely fight to keep her. Everything tightened in the Gul Moti and
locked--hard. She had known most of the caravan elephants all her
life--what would happen to them? They had lived among men these many and
many years--never permitted to fight--they could not be equally
fighting-fit. The herd would be much leaner--it must be much tougher.
So she bruised her head and her heart between the things that were due to
happen to her caravan--horrible punishments and almost certain deaths.

When the caravan appeared, the males were leading; the four females well
in the rear. Nut Kut's flaming orange and imperial-blue trappings
covered and cumbered him; and young Gunpat Rao's gorgeous saffron and
old-rose burned through the Gul Moti's eyes to the hard lump in her
throat--it was the one time in their lives when they should be free.

At once the wild females gathered their youngsters--and some who seemed
almost mature--cutting them out from the herd and driving them back.
This revealed the wild fighters--many more in number than those of the
caravan. The approaching challenges, from both sides, were thundering
thick and fast now. The two bodies of elephants were plunging down the
opposite sides of a deep khud and would meet in the broad bottom. Mitha
Baba--the big males on each side of her--was setting the pace for this
side, as if everything depended on time. But when they were quite close,
she rushed ahead--straight through the caravan and beyond.

Mitha Baba had been leading her catch to her own stockades--being in no
wise responsible that they were not trap-stockades! Now, the home
elephants having come to receive it, she had rushed it in--exactly as she
would have rushed it into a trap. But Mitha Baba was not satisfied.
With a curious little call she wheeled, coming back to face the wild herd
from her own side.

It was a turmoil that looked and sounded like nothing imaginable. The
fighting pairs were choosing each other and taking place. They had
plenty of room. When it was settled betw