wiftness. For once in
his life Warwick did not know where he stood. For once he was the
chief figure of a situation he did not entirely understand. He tried
to probe into the darkness with his tired eyes.

"Here I am!" he called. The tiger, starting to creep forward once
more, halted at the voice. A small straight figure sped like an arrow
out of the thickets and halted at his side.

It was such an astounding appearance as for an instant completely
paralyzes the mental faculties. Warwick's first emotion was simply a
great and hopeless astonishment. Long inured to the mystery of the
jungle, he thought he had passed the point where any earthly happening
could actually bewilder him. But in spite of it, in spite of the
fire-eyed peril in the darkness, he was quite himself when he spoke.
The voice that came out of the silence was wholly steady--a kindly,
almost amused voice of one who knows life as it is and who has
mastered his own destiny.

"Who in the world?" he asked in the vernacular.

"It is I--Little Shikara," a tremulous voice answered. Except for the
tremor he could not keep from his tone, he spoke as one man to
another.

Warwick knew at once that Little Shikara was not yet aware of the
presence of the tiger fifty feet distant in the shadows. But he knew
nothing else. The whole situation was beyond his ken.

But his instincts were manly and true. "Then run speedily, little
one," he whispered, "back to the village. There is danger here in the
dark."

Little Shikara tried to speak, and he swallowed painfully. A lump had
come in his throat that at first would not let him talk. "Nay,
Protector of the Poor!" he answered. "I--I came alone. And I--I am thy
servant."

Warwick's heart bounded. Not since his youth had left him to a gray
world had his strong heart leaped in just this way before. "Merciful
God!" he whispered in English. "Has a child come to save me?" Then he
whipped again into the vernacular and spoke swiftly; for no further
seconds were to be wasted. "Little Shikara, have you ever fired a
gun?"

"No, Sahib--"

"Then lift it up and rest it across my body. Thou knowest how it is
held--"

Little Shikara didn't know exactly, but he rested the gun on Warwick's
body; and he had seen enough target practice to crook his finger about
the trigger. And together, the strangest pair of huntsmen that the
Indian stars ever looked down upon, they waited.

"It is Nahara," Warwick explained softly. For he had