WILD DOGS 167 



quite happily with its master, not ever to be tied up 

 again. 



The next camping place was close to the river 

 Pranhita, and one heard a rushing noise of waters 

 at night, where they ran down the rapids and then 

 flowed gently along. There were islands in the river 

 and otters lived on them. Two of them came and 

 played close to me : they scrambled on to rocks 

 and then plunged into the rapids, where one could 

 see their shiny heads bobbing up. They climbed 

 out, called to each other and did the same thing 

 over and over again. As I walked along the bank 

 several of them followed me, swimming along, then 

 landing and plunging again; when I stopped they 

 stopped, and it was very pretty and interesting to 

 watch them, and I hope they thought the same about 

 me. 



There were a great many wild dogs in these jungles. 

 One morning we had gone out to see if a calf had been 

 taken; no tiger had come, the calf was standing 

 there, but there were marks of dogs all round it, 

 and a pack of them had been there. They had lain 

 and sat round the big calf for hours, to judge by the 

 marks on the ground, but they had not attempted 

 to touch or go quite close up to him. We brought the 

 calf back with us, and went out again in the evening 

 to tie up in quite a different direction. We were 

 walking along the Dena nullah, which, there, was 

 about eighty yards wide, and the bed of soft loose 

 sand with here and there a large pool of water. 

 As we turned a bend in the nullah, Moka, the shikari, 

 suddenly signed to me to stop : he pointed out a 



