By this time the animals had all gathered, and Sa'-zada opening The Book, spoke:

"This is Wild Boar's night. I am sure he will tell us something interesting."

"A lie is often amusing," declared Magh.

"That may be so," retorted Boar, "for even Sa'-zada has said that you are the funniest Animal in the Park."

"But why should we listen to Soor's squeaky tales?" snarled Bagh; "when he gets excited his voice puts me on edge."

"Well," interrupted Sa'-zada, "these meetings are so that each animal may have a chance to tell us what good there is in him."

"Then why should Soor waste our time?" queried Magh. "Even he will know no good of himself."

"I don't know about that," answered Sa'-zada. "I think every animal is for some good purpose, and we can tell better after we have heard Boar's story."

"Here are two of us, O Sa'-zada," said Grey Boar. "I, who am from Burma, know of the way of my kind in that land, and Big Tusk, who is also here, being my Comrade, is from Nagpore, in India, and can tell you how we are persecuted in the North. If I am all bad, can anyone say why it is? I am not an eater of Bhainsa, Men's Buffalo, like Bagh and Pardus; neither am I, nor any of my Kind, known as Man-killers. Even in Hathi's family have there been Man-killers--the Rogue Hathi."

"But it is said in the Jungles that you sometimes kill _Bakri_, the Men's Sheep," declared Magh.

"All a lie!" answered Grey Boar. "We are not animals of the Kill; neither do we wreck the villages of the Men, as does Hathi, nor drive the rice-growers from their lands--lest they be eaten--as do Bagh and Pardus."

"But you eat their jowari and rice," a.s.serted Panther.

"A little of it at times, perhaps, but only a little. Our food is of the Jungles, and how are we to know just what has been grown by the Men, and what has grown of itself? And in my land, which was Aracan in Burma, but for me and my people the Men could not live."

"In what manner, O Benefactor of the Oppressed?" asked Magh, mockingly.

"Because of Python, and Cobra, and Karait, and Deboia, and the other small Dealers of Death," answered Grey Boar, st.u.r.dily. "We roam the Jungles, and when these Snakes, that are surely evil, rise in our paths, we trample them, and tear them with our tusks----"

"And eat them, I know, cha-hau, cha-hau!" laughed Hyena, smacking his watering lips.

"Yes," affirmed Grey Boar. "Are not we, alone, of all Animals for this work? When Cobra strikes, and fetches home, does not even Hathi, or Arna, or mighty Raj Bagh, die quickly? But not so with us. I can turn my cheek, thus, to King Cobra, (and he held his big grizzled head sideways), and when I feel the soft pat of his cold nose against my fat jaw, I seize him by the neck, and in a minute one of the worst enemies of Man is dead."

"What says King Cobra, then--Cobra and the others--crawling destroyers?" asked Magh, maliciously.

"This is Boar's story," interrupted Mooswa, seeing that Sa'-zada looked angry at the interruption.

"As I was saying," continued Grey Boar, "Cobra and his cousins kill more of the Men-kind, many times over, than all the other Jungle Dwellers put together. Think of that, Comrades--even when we are searching the Jungles on every side for these evil Poisoners; so if it were not for us, what would become of the Men? Yet in a hot time of little Jungle food, if we but eat a small share from their fields, the Men revile us. Also, there is cause for fear at times in this labor that is ours. Once I remember I had a tight squeeze----"

"Going through a fence into a jowari field, I suppose," prompted Magh.

"I did not have my tail cut off for stealing cocoa-nuts," sneered Grey Boar. "The tight squeeze was from Python; and do you know that to this day I am half a head longer than I was before our slim Friend twisted about my body. But I got his head in my strong jaws just as I was near dead."

"Perhaps you would not have managed it if he had not squeezed you out long," said Pardus.

"What I say," continued Boar, "is, that we are not the Evil Kind that is in the mouth of everyone. Cobra crawls into the houses of the Men, and for fear of their evil G.o.ds they feed him; and one day in anger he strikes to Kill. That is surely wrong. But we live in houses of our own make."

"Certainly that is a lie," interrupted Magh. "Thou art a wanderer in the Jungle, a dweller in caves, even as Pard the Panther."

"You are wrong, Little One," declared Hathi, "for I have seen Boar's house. It's a sort of gra.s.s hauda."

"Yes," affirmed Wild Boar; "it is all of my own making, and of gra.s.s, to be sure. For days and days at a time, I do nothing but cut the strong elephant gra.s.s, and the big ferns, and the sweet bowlchie, and pile it up into a house. Then I burrow under it, and the rain beats it down over my back, and soon I have a nice, clean, waterproof nest. I am not a homeless vagabond like Magh and her wandering tribe----"

"And that's just it," broke in Big Tusk, the Nagpore Boar. "We, who are quiet and orderly in our manner of life, living in houses of our own building, as Grey Boar has said, are hunted and killed by the White-faced ones as a matter of sport. What think you of that, Sa'-zada--killed just for our tusks--for a pair of teeth?"

"It is likewise so with me, my narrow-faced Brother," whispered Hathi.

"Many of my kind are slain for their tusks; I, who have lived amongst the Men, know that."

Continued Big Tusk: "Yes, this is so; I have been in many a run in the corries of Nagpore. You see, I learned the game from my Mother when I was but a 'Squeaker,' for be it to the credit of the White ones, they kill not the Sows with their sharp spears."

"Was that pig-sticking?" asked Sa'-zada.

"It was," declared Big Tusk; "and my Mother, who was in charge of a Sounder of at least thirty Pigs, knew all about this game. We'd be feeding in the sweet bowlchie gra.s.s, or in a _thur khet_, when suddenly I'd hear her say, 'Waugh! Ung-h-gh!' which meant, 'Danger! lie low.'

Then, watching, we'd see those of the Black-kind here, and there, and all over, with flags in their hands to drive the Pigs certain ways, and to show the Sahibs which way we went. Mother would always make us lie still until the very last minute; but almost always, sooner or later, the Sahibs would come galloping on their horses right in amongst us.

'Ugh-ugh-ugh-ugh!' Mother would call to us, and this meant, 'Run for it, but keep to cover'; and away we'd go, from _sun khet_ to _dol_ field, and then into _shur_ gra.s.s, from Sirsee Bund to Hirdee Bund, or into the tall, thick bowlchie. Now the trouble was this way: Mother was so big and strong that the Sahibs on their ponies always galloped after, thinking her a Boar. Even the Black Men with the flags would cry, '_Hong! Hong! Burra dant wallah!_' which means in their speech, 'A Boar of big tusks.' Many a time I've heard Mother chuckle over the run she'd given the Hors.e.m.e.n, for we'd lie up in the gra.s.s, and listen to the White-faced ones, the Sahibs, curse the Black Men most heartily for their foolishness in calling Mother a big-tusked Boar. It was all done to save the Tuskers, for while the Sahibs were chasing Mother, many an old chap has saved having a spear thrust through him by clearing off to some other _bund_."

"You did have a good schooling," remarked Gidar, the Jackal. "But did the Sahibs never spear any of your young Brothers?"

"No; as I have said, it was only a big-tusked one they cared for. But to me it seemed such a cruel thing, even when I was young; killing us with the sharp spears--for, more than once I've heard the scream of a Boar as he was stabbed to death."

"But what were you doing in the _dol_ gra.s.s, you and your big Mother?"

asked Bagh. "Were not you eating the grain of the poor villagers? I remember in my time, when I was a free Lord of the Jungles, that a poor old _ryot_ (farmer) had a little field--a new field it was--just in the edge of the Jungle. I also remember it was _raji_ he grew in it, and he prayed to me as though I were one of his Hindoo G.o.ds, asking me to keep close watch over his field, and to kill all the Pigs, and the Chital, and Black Buck that might come there to destroy his _raji_. Even, to give me a liking for the place, that I might mark it down in my line of hunt, he tied an old Cow there for my first Kill. I was the making of that Man," declared Bagh, sitting down and smoothing his big coa.r.s.e mustache with his velvet paw--"the making of him, for he had a splendid crop of _raji_, and I, why I must have killed a dozen Pigs in and about his field."

"Oh, dear me!" cried Magh. "Sugared peanuts! Every Jungle Dweller is growing into a benefactor of the Men; even Pig is a much abused, innocent chap; and here's Bagh a protector of the poor _ryot_."

"But what were you doing in the _dol_ field, Grunter?" queried Cobra; "that's what Bagh wants to know."

"Looking for Snakes," answered Boar, sulkily. "But what if we did eat a trifle of the grain; was that excuse for the Sahibs killing us? With their Horses did they not beat down and destroy more than we did? And have not the people of the land, the Black-kind, taken more from us in the way of food than we ever did from their fields? Many a time have they been saved from starvation by the meat of my tribe. And yet, through it all, we get nothing but a bad name, and that just because we stick up for our rights. Bagh talks about keeping us from the Man's field; that is just like him--it is either a false tale or he ate 'Squeakers'--little Pigs that couldn't protect themselves. Would he tackle Me? Not a bit of it! If he did I'd soon put different colored stripes on his jacket--red stripes. He's a big, sneaking coward, that's what Bagh is. Why, I've seen him sitting with his back against a rock, afraid to move, while six Jungle Dogs snapped at his very nose--waiting for him to get up that they might fight him from all sides. Ugh, ugh! a fine Lord of the Jungle! a sneak, to eat little Pigs!

"But I did more than keep a _raji_ field for a poor villager; I saved his life, and from Bagh, too. I don't know that he had ever given me to eat willingly, or even made _pooja_ to me, but I was coming up out of his _thur_ field one evening, and he was fair in my path, with one of those foolish ringed sticks in his hand. 'Ugh!' I said, meaning, 'Get out of the way,' but he only stood there.

"This made me cross, and I thought he was disputing the road with me, for I am not like Bagh, the Lord of the Jungle, who slinks to one side.

Then I spoke again to the man, 'Ugh, ugh, wungh!' meaning that I was about to charge. All the time I was coming closer to him on the path.

Then I saw what it was; my friend, Stripes the Tiger, was crouched just beyond the Man, lashing the gra.s.s with his long, silly tail.

"Now as I had made up my mind to charge something that was in my path, and as the sight of Bagh in his evil temper drew my anger toward him, I drove full at his yellow throat. Just one rip of my tusks, and with a howl like a starved Jackal he cleared for the Jungle. He meant to eat that Man, you see."

"Now we are getting at the truth of the matter," cried Magh, gleefully.

"When these Jungle thieves fall out, we get to know them fairly well."

"But tell us more of this hunting of your kind with the spears, O brother of the Big Tusks," pleaded Hathi. "It does seem an unjust thing."

"Well," continued the Seoni Boar, "as I have said, while in my Mother's keeping, she taught me much of the ways of the Boar Hunters. Many a run from the Spear Men I've been in. But while I was small, and had not tusks, of course I was allowed to go, even when they came full upon the top of us; but in a few years my tusks grew, and each run became harder and more difficult to get away from. Besides, early in the Cold Time, at the time the Men call Christmas, we Boars all went off by ourselves, and left the Sows and Squeakers in peace; and, while I think of it, I've no doubt it was at this time that Bagh killed so many of my people in the _raji_ fields. Had there been a big Tusker or two there, Tiger would have been busy looking for Chital or Sambhur.

"Well, through being away from my Mother this way, and mixing with the other Boars, I got to be quite capable of taking care of myself; and, as I lived year after year, finally the Black Men, Ugh! also the White-faced ones, gave to me the name of the Seoni Boar. So, with the more knowledge I gained with my years of being, the more I required it, for the closer they hunted me.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "IT WAS AT THIS TIME THAT BAGH KILLED SO MANY OF MY PEOPLE."]