The mahout and the coolie were already cleaning the deer and, without troubling to cut it up, bound its legs together with udal fibre and tied it to the pad of their elephant; and the party moved on again.

Half a mile further on the silence of the forest was broken by the loud crowing of a cock, taken up and answered defiantly by others.

“Hallo! are we near a village, sir?” asked Wargrave, surprised at the familiar sounds so far in the heart of the wild.

“No; those are jungle-fowl,” whispered the Political Officer.  “Get your gun ready.”

He halted the elephant and picked up his fowling-piece.  Frank hurriedly substituted a shot cartridge for the one loaded with ball in his gun.  He heard a pattering on the dry leaves under the trees and into a fairly open space before them stalked a pretty little bantam cock with red comb and wattles and curving green tail-feathers, followed by four or five sober brown hens, so like in every respect to domestic fowl that Wargrave hesitated to shoot.  But suddenly the birds whirred up into the air; and, as the Colonel gave them both barrels, Frank did the same.  The cock and three of his wives dropped.  The mahout urged his elephant forward and made the reluctant animal pick up the crumpled bunches of blood-stained feathers in its curving trunk and pass them to him.

Colonel Dermont searched the jungle for some distance around but could not find the other jungle-cocks that had answered the dead one’s challenge.  Looking at his watch he suggested a halt for lunch, which Wargrave, whose back was beginning to ache with fatigue, gladly agreed to.  Dismounting, they sat on the ground and ate and drank the contents of the pockets of Badshah’s pad, but with loaded rifles beside them lest their meal should be disturbed by any dangerous denizen of the jungle.  The two natives sat down some distance away and, turning their backs on each other, drew out cloths in which their midday repast of chupatis, or thick pancakes, with curry and an onion or two was tied up.  The elephants left to themselves grazed close by and did not attempt to wander away.

Their meal and a smoke finished the party mounted again and moved on.  But luck seemed to have deserted them.  Much to the Political Officer’s disappointment they wandered for miles without adding anything to the bag.  He had calculated on getting another couple of sambhur stags to present to the Deb Zimpun as food for his hungry followers.  The route that they were now taking led circuitously back towards the peelkhana, which they wished to reach before sundown.  They had got within a mile of it and were close to the foot of the hills when Badshah stopped suddenly and smelt the ground.  Colonel Dermot leaned over the huge head and stared down intently at something invisible to his young companion.

“What is it, sir?” asked Wargrave in a whisper.