THE TOMB OF HIS ANCESTORS
youth and innocence. I believe you 'll be all right if you can get 'em to listen to you."
"I think so, sir; but if—if they should accidentally put an—make asses of 'emselves—they might, you know—I hope you 'll represent that they were only frightened. There is n't an ounce of real vice in 'em, and I should never forgive myself if any one of—of my name got them into trouble."
The Colonel nodded, but said nothing.
Chinn and Bukta departed at once. Bukta did not say that, ever since the official vaccinator had been dragged into the hills by indignant Bhils, runner after runner had skulked up to the lines, entreating, with forehead in the dust, that Jan Chinn should come and explain this unknown horror that hung over his people.
The portent of the Clouded Tiger was now too clear. Let Jan Chinn comfort his own, for vain was the help of mortal man. Bukta toned down these beseechings to a simple request for Chinn's presence. Nothing would have pleased the old man better than a rough-and-tumble campaign against the Satpuras, whom he, as an "unmixed" Bhil, despised; but he had a duty to all his nation as Jan Chinn's interpreter; and he devoutly believed that forty plagues would fall on his village if he tampered with that obligation. Besides, Jan Chinn knew all things, and he rode the Clouded Tiger.
They covered thirty miles a day on foot and pony, raising the blue wall-like line of the Satpuras as swiftly as might be. Bukta was very silent.
They began the steep climb a little after noon, but it
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