him but for a mistake the sahib made in the little calf's ninth year.

He sold Muztagh's mother to an elephant-breeder from a distant province.
Little Muztagh saw her march away between two tuskers--down the long
elephant trail into the valley and the shadow.

"Watch the little one closely to-night," Dugan Sahib said to his mahout.
So when they had led him back and forth along the lines, they saw that
the ends of his ropes were pegged down tightly. They were horsehair
ropes, far beyond the strength of any normal nine-year-old elephant to
break. Then they went to the huts and to their women and left him to
shift restlessly from foot to foot, and think.

Probably he would have been satisfied with thinking, for Muztagh did not
know his strength, and thought he was securely tied. The incident that
upset the mahout's plans was simply that the wild elephants trumpeted
again from the hills.

Muztagh heard the sound, long drawn and strange from the silence of the
jungle. He grew motionless. The great ears pricked forward, the whipping
tail stood still. It was a call never to be denied. The blood was
leaping in his great veins.

He suddenly rocked forward with all his strength. The rope spun tight,
hummed, and snapped--very softly indeed. Then he padded in silence out
among the huts, and nobody who had not seen him do it would believe how
silently an elephant can move when he sees fit.

There was no thick jungle here--just soft grass, huts, approaching dark
fringe that was jungle. None of the mahouts was awake to see him. No