ure. Your revered ancestor, my boy, according to the
Bhils, has a tiger of his own--a saddle-tiger that he rides round
the country whenever he feels inclined. I don't call it decent in an
ex-Collector's ghost; but that is what the Southern Bhils believe. Even
our men, who might be called moderately cool, don't care to beat that
country if they hear that Jan Chinn is running about on his tiger. It
is supposed to be a clouded animal--not stripy, but blotchy, like a
tortoise-shell tom-cat. No end of a brute, it is, and a sure sign of war
or pestilence or--or something. There's a nice family legend for you."

"What's the origin of it, d' you suppose?" said Chinn.

"Ask the Satpura Bhils. Old Jan Chinn was a mighty hunter before the
Lord. Perhaps it was the tiger's revenge, or perhaps he's huntin' 'em
still. You must go to his tomb one of these days and inquire. Bukta will
probably attend to that. He was asking me before you came whether by any
ill-luck you had already bagged your tiger. If not, he is going to enter
you under his own wing. Of course, for you of all men it's imperative.
You'll have a first-class time with Bukta."

The Major was not wrong. Bukta kept an anxious eye on young Chinn at
drill, and it was noticeable that the first time the new officer lifted
up his voice in an order the whole line quivered. Even the Colonel
was taken aback, for it might have been Lionel Chinn returned from
Devonshire with a new lease of life. Bukta had continued to develop his
peculiar theory among his intimates, and it was accepted as a matter of
faith in the lines, since every word and gesture on young Chinn's part
so confirmed it.

The old man arranged early that his darling should wipe out the reproach
of not having shot a tiger; but he was not content to take the first or
any beast that happened to arrive. In his own villages he dispensed
the high, low, and middle justice, and when his people--naked and
fluttered--came to him with word of a beast marked down, he bade them
send spies to the kills and the watering-places, that he might be sure
the quarry was such an one as suited the dignity of such a man.

Three or four times the reckless trackers returned, most truthfully
saying that the beast was mangy, undersized--a tigress worn with
nursing, or a broken-toothed old male--and Bukta would curb young
Chinn's impatience.

At last, a noble animal was marked down--a ten-foot cattle-killer with
a huge roll of loose skin alon