CAUGHT IN A TRAP.
Whilst Oliver and the old shikaree were working hard in the moonlight, Mr. Desborough and his friends were in hot pursuit of the flying wolves.
The major, who was the keenest sportsman of the three, gave it as his opinion that their wisest course was to keep the pack in sight. The wolf with the child was rushing from its covert in answer to the patriarch's call, and would be sure to join the others sooner or later.
Up came some of the jogies, breathless and panting, to declare they had heard the cry of the child far up the hill, toward the temple ruins. If so, the wolf must have been retreating to the second koond, on the other side of the hill. The deputy, who was anxious to pick up his nephew, turned back to beat it with another party of the jogies, who were examining the tracks about the jheel.
"Mind you beat up stream," shouted the major, as he sprang into his saddle, prepared to give chase to the wolves.
They came up with the pack at the head of a valley, where they were picking the bones of a spotted deer some tiger had brought down. But no child was among them. In a country so full of cover it was impossible to say where the little fugitive might be hiding. So they posted chakoos, or lookouts, all about, to give instantaneous notice if anything showed.
In the gray of the dawn, disheartened and weary, the friends drew together once again. Hunting-flasks were taken out, and counsel held in the weed-grown court of the temple.
"Our hour is coming," said the major cheerily. "Wait until the day is well up, and we shall find the child asleep under one of these bushes. Now for some lure to make it show. We must beat them all."
"And frighten him into idiocy, if his dawning sense has not been scared away already! He knew me no longer," exclaimed Mr. Desborough.
"Surely he would recognize his mother's voice," put in the deputy.