"How good--how very good is goat!" said the Jackal.

"Hairy--too hairy, and when found in the water more than likely
to hide a cross-shaped hook. But that goat I accepted, and went
down to the Ghaut in great honour. Later, my Fate sent me the
boatman who had desired to cut off my tail with an axe. His boat
grounded upon an old shoal which you would not remember."

"We are not ALL jackals here," said the Adjutant. Was it the
shoal made where the stone-boats sank in the year of the great
drouth--a long shoal that lasted three floods?"

"There were two," said the Mugger; "an upper and a lower shoal."

"Ay, I forgot. A channel divided them, and later dried up
again," said the Adjutant, who prided himself on his memory.

"On the lower shoal my well-wisher"s craft grounded. He was
sleeping in the bows, and, half awake, leaped over to his
waist--no, it was no more than to his knees--to push off.
His empty boat went on and touched again below the next reach,
as the river ran then. I followed, because I knew men would
come out to drag it ashore."

"And did they do so?" said the Jackal, a little awe-stricken.
This was hunting on a scale that impressed him.

"There and lower down they did. I went no farther, but that gave
me three in one day--well-fed manjis (boatmen) all, and, except
in the case of the last (then I was careless), never a cry to
warn those on the bank."

"Ah, noble sport! But what cleverness and great judgment it
requires!" said the Jackal.

"Not cleverness, child, but only thought. A little thought in
life is like salt upon rice, as the boatmen say, and I have
thought deeply always. The Gavial, my cousin, the fish-eater,
has told me how hard it is for him to follow his fish, and how
one fish differs from the other, and how he must know them all,
both together and apart. I say that is wisdom; but, on the other
hand, my cousin, the Gavial, lives among his people. MY people
do not swim in companies, with their mouths out of the water, as
Rewa does; nor do they constantly rise to the surface of the
water, and turn over on their sides, like Mohoo and little
Chapta; nor do they gather in shoals after flood, like Batchua
and Chilwa."

"All are very good eating," said the Adjutant, clattering
his beak.

"So my cousin says, and makes a great to-do over hunting them,
but they do not climb the banks to escape his sharp nose.
MY people are otherwise. Their life is on the land, in the
houses, among the cattle. I must know what they do, and what
they are about to do; and adding the tail to the trunk, as the
saying is, I make up the whole elephant. Is there a green branch
and an iron ring hanging over a doorway? The old Mugger knows
that a boy has been born in that house, and must some day come
down to the Ghaut to play. Is a maiden to be married?
The old Mugger knows, for he sees the men carry gifts back and
forth; and she, too, comes down to the Ghaut to bathe before
her wedding, and--he is there. Has the river changed its
channel, and made new land where there was only sand before?
The Mugger knows."

"Now, of what use is that knowledge?" said the Jackal.
"The river has shifted even in my little life." Indian rivers
are nearly always moving about in their beds, and will shift,
sometimes, as much as two or three miles in a season, drowning
the fields on one bank, and spreading good silt on the other.

"There is no knowledge so useful," said the Mugger, "for new
land means new quarrels. The Mugger knows. Oho! the Mugger
knows. As soon as the water has drained off, he creeps up the
little creeks that men think would not hide a dog, and there he
waits. Presently comes a farmer saying he will plant cucumbers
here, and melons there, in the new land that the river has given
him. He feels the good mud with his bare toes. Anon comes
another, saying he will put onions, and carrots, and sugar-cane
in such and such places. They meet as boats adrift meet, and
each rolls his eye at the other under the big blue turban.
The old Mugger sees and hears. Each calls the other "Brother,"
and they go to mark out the boundaries of the new land.
The Mugger hurries with them from point to point, shuffling very
low through the mud. Now they begin to quarrel! Now they say
hot words! Now they pull turbans! Now they lift up their lathis
(clubs), and, at last, one falls backward into the mud, and the
other runs away. When he comes back the dispute is settled, as
the iron-bound bamboo of the loser witnesses. Yet they are not
grateful to the Mugger. No, they cry "Murder!" and their
families fight with sticks, twenty a-side. My people are good
people--upland Jats--Malwais of the Bet. They do not give blows
for sport, and, when the fight is done, the old Mugger waits
far down the river, out of sight of the village, behind the
kikar-scrub yonder. Then come they down, my broad-shouldered
Jats--eight or nine together under the stars, bearing the dead
man upon a bed. They are old men with gray beards, and voices as
deep as mine. They light a little fire--ah! how well I know that


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