When the jackals had all stopped howling, Jinks moved slowly forward, with a deprecating air, for he was not sure of his reception.  And, indeed, had he known what sort of a reception he would get, it is doubtful whether he would ever have ventured forward at all.  For the moment the jackals caught sight of him, with one accord they left the carcass of the sheep, and with a few swift bounds surrounded him.  They very soon let him know he was a stranger, and an unwelcome one, and before he had time to realize the state of affairs he had received several sharp bites.

His smell was against him, to begin with, for a tame jackal loses much of the strongness of the odor peculiar to him, and a pack of jackals rather prides itself on the strongness of its smell, for this smell keeps away many things that are unpleasant to them in the shape of enemies.

But Jinks was not going to stand still and be bitten to death, so he promptly turned upon his assailants, and bit and tore some of them so savagely that the others paused.  One old jackal, being keenly jealous of new arrivals in the shape of strange jackals, took upon himself to catch Jinks by his foreleg, a mistake he had reason to regret, for Jinks—­who was abnormally strong, and possessed the peculiar little excrescence shaped like a cone on his head, and which generally denotes a leader of a pack—­suddenly seized his opponent by his throat, and refused to let go until he was dead.  Then, shaking him as though he had been a little terrier, he laid him down with a growl, and looked round as much as to say: 

“Now, then, who comes next?”

None of the jackals seemed to be particularly anxious, for now that Jinks was standing among so many of his fellows, he found he was just a little taller than any of them, and this little gave him. an immense advantage.  He snapped and bit one or two more just to show them he was still ready to go on; but, although they all howled and screamed again, they were not anxious to fight.  The newcomer had killed their leader, and they were afraid of him.

Jinks wasted no time.  He had not stayed long enough in captivity to become really tame or timid, and this one fight had made a jackal of him, and he took care to let them know it.  He was wildly excited, and daring enough at that moment for anything, and his daring and recklessness inspired the jackals with respect, and, in spite of a few dissenting voices, Jinks promptly took the leadership of the pack without more ado.  It all came as natural to him as though he had been a wild, free thing all his life, and dependent on his own resources for food and shelter.

In that moment he forgot all his past life, and only realized that he was a strong, full-grown animal; that he was the leader of the pack, and that the others, for some unaccountable reason, were afraid of him, and ready to acknowledge that he was their master.