“Ah, but did you offer me the chance?” she returned.

“I never realized till now that a chap might be too close lipped sometimes.  Well, here we are, in flight together!”

That night for the first time in many hours Kathlyn closed her eyes with a sense of security.  True, it was not the most comfortable place to sleep in, the howdah; there were ceaseless rollings from side to side, intermingled with spine racking bumps forward, as the elephant occasionally hastened his stride.  Kathlyn succeeded in stealing from the god of sleep only cat naps.  Often the cold would awaken her, and she would find that Bruce had been bracing her by extending his arm across the howdah and gripping the rail.

“You mustn’t do that,” she protested feebly.  “You will be dead in the morning.”

“You might fall out.”

“Then I shan’t go to sleep again till the journey ends.  You have been so good and kind to me!”

“Nonsense!”

They came out into the scrub jungle, and the moonlight lay magically over all things.  Sometimes a shadow crossed the whitened sands; scurried, rather; and quietly Bruce would tell her what the animals were—­jackals, with an occasional prowling red wolf.  They were not disturbed by any of the cat family.  But there was one interval of suspense.  Bruce spied in the distance a small herd of wild elephants.  So did Rajah, who raised his trunk and trumpeted into the night.  The mahout, fully awake to the danger, beat the old rascal mightily with his goad.  Yet that would have failed to hold Rajah.  Bruce averted the danger by shooting his revolvers into the air.  The wild elephants stampeded, and Rajah, disgruntled, was brought to the compass.

“Strange thing about a gunshot,” said Bruce.  “They may never have heard one before; but instinct tells them quickly of the menace.  Years ago at home, when I used to fish for bass, during the closed season I’d see thousands of duck and geese and deer.  Yet a single gunshot when the season opened and you never could get within a mile of them.”

“That is true.  I have fished and hunted with father.”

“Surely!  I keep forgetting that it’s ten to one you know more about game than I do.”

Silence fell upon them again.  On, on, without pausing.  Bruce was getting sleepy himself, so he began munching biscuits.  Lighter and lighter grew the east; the moon dimmed, and by and by everything grew gray and the chill in the air seemed sharpest yet.

They were both awake.

Sunup they stopped by a stream.  Bruce dismounted without having the elephant kneel and went to the water to fill his canteen.  The hunter in him became interested in the tracks along the banks.  A tiger, a leopard, some apes, and a herd of antelopes had been down to drink during the night.  Even as he looked a huge gray ape came bounding out, head-on toward Rajah, who despised these foolish beasts.  Perhaps the old elephant missed Ali, perhaps he was still somewhat upset by his failure to join his wild brothers the night before; at any rate, without warning, he set off with that shuffling gait which sometimes carried him as swiftly as a horse.  An elephant never trots nor really runs according to our conception of the terms; he shuffles, scarcely lifting his feet off the ground.