Oliver muttered something, and creaked the gate, so that she could not hear what he said.
Out she flew panting, Oliver after her.
"What could he do that for!" exclaimed his sister, considerably chagrined. "How just like a boy! He always is so stupid. I believe he wanted to have a look at the wolf himself."
The syces had laid the dead animal on the bank which ran round Mr. Desborough's compound, and were standing under the shadow of the garden trees considering it. They called to the gardener to bring them some fern leaves and bushes to cover the wolf from the sun, until they knew whether the sahib wished to preserve its skin.
It was a savage-looking brute, young, for its prevailing colour was a tawny fawn, with a little gray on its back and inside its legs.
"That is not the horrid dog that ran away with Carl!" exclaimed Kathleen. "It was not a buff dog; it was a gray dog, with a great scratch on its shoulder. I should know it anywhere. I see it now—I always see it—stealing out of the bathroom."
The gardener pressed in between and threw his load of fern leaves over it, to prevent her seeing any more of the fierce booraba. Her own favourite syce, who drove her out in her little carriage every evening, tried to lead her away. Old Gobur stopped him.
"Let the little beebee [the little lady] look."
"It will only terrify her; and the sahib will be angry," urged the syce.
"Stop!" persisted Gobur, speaking in his soft Indi, which Oliver tried hard to follow; and then the old man explained—"The colour of a wolf tells its age: they all turn gray as they grow old. If a gray wolf carried off the child, it has carried it off alive. We must search again."