een them, Nut Kut was facing the
most powerful-looking of the wild fighters; and Gunpat Rao, another who
looked almost as dangerous. The extra males of the wild herd--every one
formidable--were skirmishing about, watching for a chance to interfere.
It looked bad for the caravan.

The mahouts--the Gul Moti had scarcely remembered them till now--were
calling back and forth about a bad one, a "tricky elephant." Following
their gestures, she saw a pale shape moving around in the open. They
left no doubt that he represented the worst of all danger. They were
charging each other to watch him--never mind what.

. . . The fight was on. Plainly--in every tone, every action--the wild
went in with wild enthusiasm, the tame with grave determination. Mitha
Baba, having come in closer than any of the other females, did not
move,--save for a constant turning of her head under the Gul Moti's icy
fingers--seeming to keep an eye on all the separate fights at once.

Her fear for the caravan elephants was anguish, her fatigue extreme; but
excitement held the Gul Moti in a vise. She saw the fighters meet, skull
to skull. (Those were the frightful blows she had heard in the dark,
through the trumpeting of a whole herd!) How could any living thing
endure the impact of such weight? She looked to see the skin break away
and fall apart at once. She expected to see an elephant's head split
open. It was nerve-wrecking--an arena of giant violence.

"Pray the gods to send Neela Deo!" one of the mahouts shouted.

"Pray the gods to send Neela Deo!" others called back.

The Gul Moti knew that Neela Deo did not fight; that it was his
leadership they needed. Soon she heard a muffled cry from the same
mahout:

"Men of the Hills, mourn with me!"

(A low wind of tone replied.)

His elephant seemed slower than the one against him; slower in getting
back--in coming on. . . . Now he was wavering--shaken through his whole
bulk by every meeting. . . . He was not running--he was dazed--he was
down! Staring wide-eyed at the horror--the way a barbarian elephant
kills--the Gul Moti was glad Skag did not see! . . . The mahout had
managed to reach a tree in time to save his own life and was crouching on
a branch, with his head buried in his arms.

Nut Kut was finishing with the leader of the wild herd--more mercifully
than the wild was of doing it--when two of the extras charged him
together. Ram Yaksahn, his mahout--whose voice had not b