he
low-caste hillman in Dugan's employ, grubbed grass for her in the
valleys. All night long, except the regular four hours of sleep, he
would hear her grumble and rumble and mutter discontent that her little
son shared with her.

Muztagh's second year was little better. Of course he had reached the
age where he could eat such dainties as grass and young sugar-cane, but
these things could not make up for the fun he was missing in the hills.
He would stand long hours watching their purple tops against the skies,
and his little dark eyes would glow. He would see the storms break and
flash above them, behold the rains lash down through the jungles, and he
was always filled with strange longings and desires that he was too
young to understand or to follow. He would see the white haze steam up
from the labyrinth of wet vines, and he would tingle and scratch for the
feel of its wetness on his skin. And often, when the mysterious Burman
night came down, it seemed to him that he would go mad. He would hear
the wild tuskers trumpeting in the jungles a very long way off, and all
the myriad noises of the mysterious night, and at such times even his
mother looked at him with wonder.

"Oh, little restless one," Langur Dass would say, "thou and that old cow
thy mother and I have one heart between us. We know the burning--we
understand, we three!"

It was true that Langur Dass understood more of the ways of the forest
people than any other hillman in the encampment. But his caste was low,
and he was drunken and careless and lazy beyond words, and the hunters
had mostly only scorn for him. They called him Langur after a
grey-bearded breed of monkeys along the slopes of the Himalayas, rather
suspecting he was cursed with evil spirits, for why should any sane man
have such mad ideas as to the rights of elephants? He never wanted to
join in the drives--which was a strange thing indeed for a man raised in
the hills. Perhaps he was afraid--but yet they could remember a certain
day in the bamboo thickets, when a great, wild buffalo had charged their
camp and Langur Dass acted as if fear were something he had never heard
of and knew nothing whatever about.

One day they asked him about it. "Tell us, Langur Dass," they asked,
mocking the ragged, dejected looking creature, "If thy name speaks
truth, thou art brother to many monkey-folk, and who knows the jungle
better than thou or they? None but the monkey-folk and thou canst talk
with my