neighborhood, and of these, for some reason or other Jinks was afraid,
and so kept at a safe distance.

Now, in his old life, Jinks had always slept at night and moved about
in the daytime, but now he got into the habit of hiding himself by day
in woody jungles and such places, and at night going out and wandering
about in search of food. He wondered once or twice what had made him
feel so differently. He did not know that it was partly due to the
fact that he had tasted fresh blood. True, it was only chicken's
blood, but it was blood all the same, and it had awakened the latent
thirst for it in him, and this, combined with the fact that he had
just reached the age of an adult jackal, accounted for his suddenly
getting so wild and savage.

All this, however, Jinks could not understand. He only knew that he
felt lonely and miserable, and that his restlessness would not let him
keep still more than a few minutes at a time. At last he began to get
very hungry, for he was not accustomed to getting his own food, and
did not know the way in which to set about it. He began to wish he
could find another chicken, and his mouth watered at the very thought.

Then one evening he came across some sheep feeding in a field, and,
being hungry and desperate, he killed one, and then gorged himself to
such a degree that he could scarcely walk away.

He had a good, long sleep after this in one of the shady jungles, and
when he woke up was too lazy, for a time, to trouble himself about
anything. His loneliness, however, increased daily, and as the days
went on he grew so miserable that he gave vent every now and then to
dismal, blood-curdling howls, which echoed and re-echoed through the