ous to keep the wild Bhils under control. That
was the thin edge of the wedge. John Chinn the First gave them written
promises that, if they were good from a certain date, the Government
would overlook previous offences; and since John Chinn was never known
to break his word--he promised once to hang a Bhil locally esteemed
invulnerable, and hanged him in front of his tribe for seven proved
murders--the Bhils settled down as steadily as they knew how. It was
slow, unseen work, of the sort that is being done all over India to-day;
and though John Chinn's only reward came, as I have said, in the shape
of a grave at Government expense, the little people of the hills never
forgot him.

Colonel Lionel Chinn knew and loved them, too, and they were very fairly
civilised, for Bhils, before his service ended. Many of them could
hardly be distinguished from low-caste Hindoo farmers; but in the south,
where John Chinn the First was buried, the wildest still clung to the
Satpura ranges, cherishing a legend that some day Jan Chinn, as they
called him, would return to his own. In the mean time they mistrusted
the white man and his ways. The least excitement would stampede them,
plundering, at random, and now and then killing; but if they were
handled discreetly they grieved like children, and promised never to do
it again.

The Bhils of the regiment--the uniformed men--were virtuous in many
ways, but they needed humouring. They felt bored and homesick unless
taken after tiger as beaters; and their cold-blooded daring--all Wuddars
shoot tigers on foot: it is their caste-mark--made even the officers
wonder. They would follow up a wounded tiger as unconcernedly as though
it were a sparrow with a broken wing; and this through a country full of
caves and rifts and pits, where a wild beast could hold a dozen men at
his mercy. Now and then some little man was brought to barracks with his
head smashed in or his ribs torn away; but his companions never learned
caution; they contented themselves with settling the tiger.

Young John Chinn was decanted at the verandah of the Wuddars' lonely
mess-house from the back seat of a two-wheeled cart, his gun-cases
cascading all round him. The slender little, hookey-nosed boy looked
forlorn as a strayed goat when he slapped the white dust off his knees,
and the cart jolted down the glaring road. But in his heart he was
contented. After all, this was the place where he had been born, and
things were no