6 THE KING'S MAHOUT 



Meantime the son rose from one of the half 

 hundred beaters employed in elephant catching to 

 mahout, for which he seemed to have marked apti- 

 tude. Indeed his quick and sympathetic under- 

 standing of elephants, and ready comprehension 

 of their management convinced the head man, who 

 had served the king for twenty years, that in Choo 

 he had found a mahout of exceptional promise. 



It came to pass one day that Chow Chorn Dum- 

 arong— who was a cousin of one of the children 

 of one of the forty-seven wives of the king, and 

 something or other in the War Department- 

 chanced to be at the encampment of elephant 

 catchers and a witness of Choo's really clever 

 handling of a tame tusker just ending a period of 

 "must,"* during which it had been somewhat 

 difficult of control. Choo's work astride the neck 

 of the unruly bull, which he had finally subdued, 

 had been so courageous and so intelligent, that it 

 impressed the king's cousin and he forthwith com- 

 manded Choo to be regularly engaged in Govern- 

 ment service. So it came about that Choo did 

 more elephant than rattan hunting, increasing his 

 prowess and reputation in one as his activity in 

 the other decreased, much to the mental anguish 



* " Must " is the temporary madness which now and then, though 

 not invariably, overtakes the male elephant when kept apart from 

 his mates. 



