jungle grass at the sides had been rolled back. Little Toomai stared once more. Now he understood the trampling. The elephants had stamped out more room — had stamped the thick grass and juicy cane to trash, the trash into slivers, the slivers into tiny fibers, and the fibers into hard earth.

“Wah!” said Little Toomai, and his eyes were very heavy. “Kala Nag, my lord, let us keep by Pudmini and go to Petersen Sahib’s camp, or I shall drop from thy neck.”

The third elephant watched the two go away, snorted, wheeled round, and took his own path.

He may have belonged to some little native king’s establishment, fifty or sixty or a hundred miles away.

Two hours later, as Petersen