There is an irregular line of stately elephants, each with its towering howdah and dusky mahout, moving slowly along through the rustling reeds.

The mahouts and beaters were petrified with horror at my presumption.

The mahout, or elephant-driver, tried in vain to check the rush of the frightened brute, but after repeated sounding whacks on the head he got her to stop, and again turn round.

The elephant was forced again into the nurkool very much against his will, and the mahout was promised a reward if we got the tigress.

'The twelve footer was so heavy that my uncle (C.A.S.) tells me no number of mahouts could lift it.

He marvelled much, and just then his mahout pointed to the supposed bull-frog, and in an excited whisper implored George to fire.

It was rapidly getting dark, and the mahout, or elephant driver, a miserable low caste stupid fellow, evidently knew nothing of the country, and was going at random.

Just then my mahout raised his hand, and in a hoarse excited whisper called out, 'Look, sahib, a large tiger!' 'Where?' we all exclaimed, getting excited at once.

As we tore through the tangled dense green patair, the broad leaves crackled like crashing branches, the huge elephants surged ahead like ships rocking in a gale of wind, and the mahouts and attendants on the pad elephants, shouted and urged on their shuffling animals, by excited cries and resounding whacks.

While the mahouts in front rained a shower of blows on the elephants head, and the spear-men pricked him up from behind with their jhethas, the occupant of the pad, turning round with his face to the tail, belaboured the poor hathee with the auctioneer's hammer.

Some are reluctant to strike out, when they begin to enter the deepest channel, and try to turn back; the mahouts and 'mates' shout, and belabour them with bamboo poles.

We hurried round as fast as we could to intercept him, should he attempt to break on ahead; and leaving some men to rally the mahouts, and let them know that there was a tiger afoot, we were soon in our places, and ready to give the cub a warm reception, should he again show his stripes.

Here we disturbed a colony of pigs, but the four mahouts being Mahommedans I did not fire.

Instinct had warned him through the tip of his trunk that danger lurked there, but his mahout (driver), anxious to get into camp after a hard day and knowing that across this stream was a short cut, had forced him.

"Debraj's" mahout ordered him to charge at "Kennedy", and, urged forward with voice and prong; "Debraj" did so with a good will.

he questioned the mahout of the small elephant.

He raised his gun and whispered to his mahout.

Jack hung the howdah with silken streamers and set a mahout's turban on the head of the man on the seat in front of him, while the glistening semi-oval tops of the limousines floating in the mist of the rising grade from Madison Square to Forty-second Street, swarmed and halted in a kind of blind, cramped pas de quatre from cross street to cross street, amid the breaking surge of pedestrians.

But Zoroaster is all right; his elephants are all right; the mahouts who steer them are all right, and it is worth fifteen rupees to ride to Amber on the back of a great, big clumsy beast, although you don't realize it at the time.

Foiled for a moment, the leader of the Saktawats threw himself from his elephant, and, placing himself before the great spikes with which the gate was protected against the assault of the beast, ordered the mahout to charge; and so a crushed and mangled corpse was forced into the city on the brow of the living battering-ram, in whose wake the assailants rushed to battle.

Meanwhile, towering over the scrubby bushes and surrounded by a dusty halo, the dilatory pachyderm bore down upon us, and, after the mahout had been interviewed in unmeasured terms by my host, went rolling slowly to the station to pick up the ladies.

Mostly they loved their mahouts, gave their strong backs willingly to toil, and were always glad and ready to join in the chase after others of their breed.

But most of the mahouts and catchers noticed the rapidity with which the little Muztagh acquired weight and strength.

The mahouts and hunters smelt more or less of civilization and were convinced for their part that the disposition of the little light-coloured elephant was beyond redemption.

None of the mahouts was awake to see him.