The punkah coolie joined them. He was certain he must have heard the snap of the wolf's teeth if he were behind that bush. For a wolf, they both asserted, bites with a snap, and clashes its teeth with as much noise as a steel trap. No; it had carried off the child alive to its lair.
Oliver bounded up the steps of the veranda, and ran into the hall. Kathleen was flitting restlessly from room to room.
"Be comforted, dear!" he exclaimed; "your brother is not killed. We may find him yet, alive in the jungle."
CHAPTER IV.
THE WOLF'S LAIR.
Yes, it was all true! That grim gray wolf was not seeking an early breakfast for herself, but a safe plaything for the five young wolflings which she loved so dearly. She cared but little for the scratch on her shoulder when she thought of their delight.
She snatched up Carl so stealthily, and with so soft a touch, he never wakened until he felt the cool breeze that arose with the peep of day, fanning his hot cheeks as the wolf ran swiftly on. It was too dark for him to see where he was, or he might have been frightened into fits. He put up his two little chubby hands and felt the wolf's shaggy coat. He thought it was Sailor, and threw his arm lovingly round the big throat. He was far too sleepy to take much notice.
The wolf gave him a gentle swing, as she still ran at her fastest pace,—aware, by the way in which she looked over her shoulder, that the pursuers were already on her track. She could hear the baying of the dogs, and darting down the river-bank, hid herself in a natural hollow formed by the dripping of a little spring. She laid Carl down where the cool drops trickled on his head, and he was soon asleep again, sounder than before.
The wolf knew well what she was about. In that quiet water-cradle, with long trailing creepers for fly-curtains, and the softest of mosses for a bed, the child never roused to utter a sound.
Many a native mother tries the same plan, and puts her little black baby to sleep in a shallow watercourse when the heat and the insects become intolerable, and so secures a few hours' refreshing sleep for it on the most sultry days.