ces while he was examining his feet. "No matter," said Little
Toomai, turning up the fringe of Kala Nag's huge right ear. "They
have said my name to Petersen Sahib, and perhaps--and perhaps--and
perhaps--who knows? Hai! That is a big thorn that I have pulled out!"

The next few days were spent in getting the elephants together, in
walking the newly caught wild elephants up and down between a couple of
tame ones to prevent them giving too much trouble on the downward march
to the plains, and in taking stock of the blankets and ropes and things
that had been worn out or lost in the forest.

Petersen Sahib came in on his clever she-elephant Pudmini; he had been
paying off other camps among the hills, for the season was coming to an
end, and there was a native clerk sitting at a table under a tree, to
pay the drivers their wages. As each man was paid he went back to his
elephant, and joined the line that stood ready to start. The catchers,
and hunters, and beaters, the men of the regular Keddah, who stayed in
the jungle year in and year out, sat on the backs of the elephants that
belonged to Petersen Sahib's permanent force, or leaned against the
trees with their guns across their arms, and made fun of the drivers who
were going away, and laughed when the newly caught elephants broke the
line and ran about.

Big Toomai went up to the clerk with Little Toomai behind him, and
Machua Appa, the head tracker, said in an undertone to a friend of his,
"There goes one piece of good elephant stuff at least. 'Tis a pity to
send that young jungle-cock to molt in the plains."

Now Petersen Sahib had ears all over him, as a man must have who listens
to the most silent of all living things--the wild elephant. He turned
where he was lying all along on Pudmini's back and said, "What is that?
I did not know of a man among the plains-drivers who had wit enough to
rope even a dead elephant."

"This is not a man, but a boy. He went into the Keddah at the last
drive, and threw Barmao there the rope, when we were trying to get that
young calf with the blotch on his shoulder away from his mother."

Machua Appa pointed at Little Toomai, and Petersen Sahib looked, and
Little Toomai bowed to the earth.

"He throw a rope? He is smaller than a picket-pin. Little one, what is
thy name?" said Petersen Sahib.

Little Toomai was too frightened to speak, but Kala Nag was behind him,
and Toomai made a sign with his hand, and the elephant caught him