Goddard. "Our _mahout_ had the story from one of the _mahouts_ of the Fort.
He had a cock-and-bull yarn about the sahib being saved by his tame
elephant, a single-tusker, which drove off the rogue. But, as the latter
was a double tusker, it's not a very likely tale."

"They've got a still more wonderful story about that fellow in Ranga Duar,"
remarked a planter named Lulworth. "They say he can do anything with wild
elephants, goes about the jungle with a herd and they obey him like a pack
of hounds."

The men near him laughed.

"Good old Lulworth!" said one. "That beats Goddard's yarn. Did you make it
up on the spot or did it take you long to think it out?"

Lulworth smiled good humouredly.

"Oh, it's not an original lie," he replied. "I had it from a half-bred
Gurkha living in the forest village near my garden."

"Who is commanding Ranga Duar?" asked Lane.

"A fellow called Dermot; a Major," replied Goddard.

"Dermot? I wonder if by any chance it's a man who used to be in these parts
before--commanded Buxa Duar when there was a detachment of an Indian
regiment there," said Payne.

"I believe it's the same," replied Goddard. "He knows these jungles well
and did a lot of shooting in them. He bagged that _budmash_ (rogue)