“Stop that!” said Billy and the troop horse together, and I could hear them stamp and shiver.  An elephant’s trumpeting is always nasty, especially on a dark night.

“I shan’t stop,” said Two Tails.  “Won’t you explain that, please?  Hhrrmph!  Rrrt!  Rrrmph!  Rrrhha!” Then he stopped suddenly, and I heard a little whimper in the dark, and knew that Vixen had found me at last.  She knew as well as I did that if there is one thing in the world the elephant is more afraid of than another it is a little barking dog.  So she stopped to bully Two Tails in his pickets, and yapped round his big feet.  Two Tails shuffled and squeaked.  “Go away, little dog!” he said.  “Don’t snuff at my ankles, or I’ll kick at you.  Good little dog—­nice little doggie, then!  Go home, you yelping little beast!  Oh, why doesn’t someone take her away?  She’ll bite me in a minute.”

“Seems to me,” said Billy to the troop horse, “that our friend Two Tails is afraid of most things.  Now, if I had a full meal for every dog I’ve kicked across the parade-ground I should be as fat as Two Tails nearly.”

I whistled, and Vixen ran up to me, muddy all over, and licked my nose, and told me a long tale about hunting for me all through the camp.  I never let her know that I understood beast talk, or she would have taken all sorts of liberties.  So I buttoned her into the breast of my overcoat, and Two Tails shuffled and stamped and growled to himself.

“Extraordinary!  Most extraordinary!” he said.  “It runs in our family.  Now, where has that nasty little beast gone to?”

I heard him feeling about with his trunk.

“We all seem to be affected in various ways,” he went on, blowing his nose.  “Now, you gentlemen were alarmed, I believe, when I trumpeted.”

“Not alarmed, exactly,” said the troop-horse, “but it made me feel as though I had hornets where my saddle ought to be.  Don’t begin again.”

“I’m frightened of a little dog, and the camel here is frightened by bad dreams in the night.”

“It is very lucky for us that we haven’t all got to fight in the same way,” said the troop-horse.

“What I want to know,” said the young mule, who had been quiet for a long time—­“what I want to know is, why we have to fight at all.”

“Because we’re told to,” said the troop-horse, with a snort of contempt.

“Orders,” said Billy the mule, and his teeth snapped.

“Hukm hai!” (It is an order!), said the camel with a gurgle, and Two Tails and the bullocks repeated, “Hukm hai!”

“Yes, but who gives the orders?” said the recruit-mule.

“The man who walks at your head—­Or sits on your back—­Or holds the nose rope—­Or twists your tail,” said Billy and the troop-horse and the camel and the bullocks one after the other.

“But who gives them the orders?”

“Now you want to know too much, young un,” said Billy, “and that is one way of getting kicked.  All you have to do is to obey the man at your head and ask no questions.”