its leaves and
then its branches and putting aside its morning dress of green for
one more in keeping with the color of the earth and sky. Even the
clamorous cicada had hushed its insistent whir.

We were dressed in brown kaki suits. Wide-spreading cork helmets
were filled with the stiff varnished leaves of the mango, and wet
handkerchiefs were draped from underneath their rims; yet, after an
hour of exposure, our flesh ached--it was tender to the touch. The
barrel of my Express scorched my hand, and I wrapped my camerabuna
about it. But then it was no hotter than any other day. In fact,
we never gave a thought to the weather.

We were formed in a line, perhaps two miles in length, in a
deserted pepper plantation, fronting a jungle of timboso trees
and rubber-vines. I squatted patiently under the checkered shade
of a neglected coffee tree and kept my eyes fixed on the seemingly
impenetrable walls of the jungle. A hundred feet to the right and the
left, under like protection, were two of my companions, determined
like myself to be successful in three points,--to have the first shot
at the pigs, to avoid getting shot, or shooting a neighbor. But our
minds rose above mental cautions with the first faint halloos of the
Hindu shikaris on the opposite side of the jungle. In another moment
the babel gave place to a confusion of shrieks, howls, yells, laughs,
barking of dogs, beating of tins, blowing of horns, explosions of
crackers, and a din that represents all that is wild and untamable
in three nations. It is a weird, almost appalling prologue. Those
laughs!--they are a study--they fairly chill the blood--they would make
the fortune of a comic actor--so intense, thrilling, surprising, and
seemingly filled with a ghoulish glee. Over and over they would break
out clear and distinct above the tintamarre. I have never been able
to find out whether it belongs to the Malay or the Kling or the Tamil.

The yelling became more distinct. A troop of brown and silver wah-wahs
swung with their long arms out to the very edge of the jungle and then
up to the tops of the highest trees, the while uttering the full,
clear note from which they take their name; followed by a troop of
gray little jungle monkeys, whistling and scolding at the unwonted
disturbance. A colony of cicadas on the limbs of a great gutta tree
awoke into life and pierced our ears with buzz-saw strains.

In an instant we were all alert,--the heat was forgotten. At an