Shouts from opposite sides of the ravine gave warning that something had been sighted. The small white thing dropped in the towering grass. A gun was fired. It was Major Iffley's. The wolf had pounced upon her nursling. The gun was loaded with small shot for the purpose. The major fired along the ground. The wolf received the charge in her shoulder. They could see her clawing the earth as she felt the pain, and then dropped down as if she were dead in the tufted grass. They could hear the screams of the terrified child.
"Carl! Carl!" Mr. Desborough called in coaxing tones of fatherly endearment, which rose to command as he met with no reply. The scouts were darting from point to point, as far as ground and jungle permitted. The three friends sprang down from the trees, only charging Oliver to stay were he was. They loaded their guns with ball, and advanced cautiously to within a yard or so of the giant grass tuft. They stationed themselves at even distances, that whichever way the wolf leaped out they might be ready to shoot him sideways through the head, so that the ball should not enter the tuft of grass. Their first object was to rouse the wolf and make it show. They trusted that terror would prevent the child leaving the shelter in which it lay concealed.
Tara Ghur had broken off a tall branch from the tree in which he had remained, and creeping along one of its mighty arms, peered down into the grass, but could see nothing. He stirred it up with the broken branch, but roused nothing except a screaming pea-hen.
He leaped to the ground. "The wolf is gone!"
"But the child—the child!" gasped Mr. Desborough, laying down his gun and forcing his way into the tangled mass. No child was there. The wolf had doubled upon them so swiftly and so stealthily, it seemed as if the ground had opened to swallow it up. The scouts jumped down from their trees, and all separated, taking different paths, to try and find which way the wolf had gone,—all but the old shikaree and Oliver, who was still aloft. Mr. Desborough was foremost; he no longer waited for the hunter's guidance. Yes, he had seen his child. He believed now it was his fair-haired boy. He had seen him and lost him again. The thought was madness. The major, gun in hand, kept close beside him.
Tara Ghur, who seemed, like the owl, to possess the power of seeing in the dark, was tracing the way the wolf had come, not the path by which it had fled from them.
Oliver, beginning to be afraid of being left behind in so wild a spot, climbed down again and followed the hunter, who was the last to leave it. The sailor-boy had climbed so high into his tree, thinking to gain a more commanding view, that he had not seen all that was taking place at its foot. Having first met Oliver in the company of the Rana's son, old Tara Ghur regarded him with something of the devotion and respect he felt for his native chief. He knew the boy was safest by his side, and invited him by gesture to follow. So the two crept on through the pathless wild no foot but theirs had ever penetrated.
If Oliver had found it hard work forcing his way with Gobur through the grass clump by the river, it was nothing to the task before him now. There were sudden drops into unseen nullahs, or watercourses, and a dangerous climb in the darkness up the steep bank, facing rolling stones from the jagged heights above. Now and again their only course was to climb the trees, and swing themselves from bough to bough. But through it all the hunter traced out the path of the wolf with an unerring dexterity that was perfectly marvellous to Oliver, tracking its course to the sweeping boughs of the deserted korinda bush.
The bones about the gray wolf's home were gnawed and dry. It was evident the hungry mother had suppered her young family on snails and field-mice; and she must have gone far afield for these, for the hunting-grounds about the hairy nest had been clearing fast of late. Old Tara tried to explain his purpose, but Oliver did not half understand. He could only watch what the hunter was doing, and second his efforts whenever he could.
"Child been here, sahib!" exclaimed Tara Ghur suddenly, after carefully groping round and round the well-made lair.