Part 44 (1/2)

She raised her head against him as before, but the smell of the water caught and altered her fury more swiftly this time. Skag saw the glare go out from the great eye as the tortured mouth was cooled; and now the hope grew within him that the tigress might actually be saved. He talked softly to her as he poured drop by drop upon her tongue from the side--the little ones pressing closer and closer. Even in the convulsive trembling that took her body from time to time there was an inflowing rather than the ebb of strength.

Presently he left her long enough partly to fill the big gourd for the babies. He had scarcely drawn back before the first was at the edge.

Lapping was not enough for this infant. He wanted to cover himself; apparently to overturn the dish upon himself. The others helped to balance the gourd for a moment or two, but the ma.s.sed effort became too furious and over it went among them. Skag laughed. Only a portion was wasted, for the kittens followed the little streams on the rock, tonguing them as they moved and filled. He tried them again, only covering the bottom of the gourd, but it was as swiftly overturned.

Still the young had drunk enough presently and went to tearing at the meat in the deeper shadows.

Skag went back to the mother, still using the canteen for her.

Alternately now he dropped the water upon the wound in her shoulder.

There were hours of work here to soften the fever crust and establish drainage. Some time afterward this work was stopped abruptly by the warning of Nels at the door. Skag stood his canteen against a rock and hurried forth. Nels stood at the mouth of the lair, his head turned up the river bed. His eyes did not alter from their look of fixity as the man emerged. The shoulder nearest Skag merely twitched a trifle, the left paw lifting to the toes. Skag followed the Dane's eyes.

The great male himself stood stock-still in the centre of the river bed, the carca.s.s of a lamb having dropped from his mouth. So strange, so vast and still, the picture, that it seemed dreamlike; the great, round, sunny eyes unwinking--serious rather than savage--a dark-banded thing of gold in the ruddy gold of late afternoon.

Skag was silent, the magic of the moment flowing into him. Nels had not moved. Skag had been forced to walk round him to find room to stand. They faced the big Bengali together for an instant, the man's hand dropping softly to the dog's shoulder.

”The king himself, son,” Skag whispered raptly. ”He's the loveliest thing in stripes. We'll have to look out for this fellow, Nels.

There's no fear in him. We're on his premises and the missus is sick and needs quiet. He's apt to charge, and I can see his point of view.

We'll back down, son, and not obstruct the gentleman's door.”

They couldn't have been three seconds clambering down the rocks to the nullah bed, yet the male tiger was twenty feet nearer when they looked up. Moreover, he had brought the lamb with him, and this time he kept it in his mouth as he watched.

”We mustn't let him see our dark side again, Nels,” Skag muttered.

”See if we can't stare as straight as he does. G.o.d, what a picture!

Yet I'm rather glad he's got that lamb. He must have brought it far.

Carrying out her orders doubtless. Only a great male would do that.

Oh, it's not that he cares for the babies, Nels. It's to please her that he does it! And she's down and done, but running the lair!”

So Skag talked, hardly knowing what he said, keeping in touch with Nels with his hand and holding the eyes of the royal beast that seemed to be made of patience and poise and gilded beauty. Skag didn't step back, but presently to the side, away from the mouth of the lair. The tiger's counter movement was not to lessen the distance between them this time, but to drop to his haunches, still holding his game. He rocked a little on his hind feet, that ominous undulation which portends the charge. Not more than ten seconds pa.s.sed and no outward change was apparent, yet there was a relief of tension in Skag's voice.

”It's the little lamb that saved us that time, Nels. I think we've pa.s.sed it--pa.s.sed the crisis, my boy. We'll just stand by now and measure patience with him.”

It was two minutes before Skag ventured a further movement to the right. The tiger made absolutely no counter this time. Skag now spoke to Nels:

”You're doing beautifully, son.”

The dog had stood by like part of himself. The droop and the quiver that he had known twice that day when the man disappeared into the lair had given way in the real test to unbreakable nerve and defiant heart.

Yet it was less the courage than his absolute obedience that entered the man with a charge of feeling that instant. A minute later Skag took another ten steps to the right.

In the deeper shadows, less than an hour afterward, he struck a match to the little supper fire a hundred yards up the slope from the mouth of the lair. Skag then loosened his hunting belt, dropping the weight from him to the blanket with a sigh of content. The hardware had chafed him all day and had only been really forgotten in the stresses of action.

”I didn't pack that gun for tiger,” he said softly. ”Why, I would as soon have shot our good Arab, Kala Khan, or put a bullet between Nut Kut's eyes, as to stop that big fellow bringing young mutton home--to please her! Won't Carlin love to hear that! Oh, yes, it's been a day, son, one more day! I've loved it minute by minute, and you've been--well, I can't think in words, when it comes to that.”

The big fellow drowsed in the firelight, his four paws stretched evenly toward the man.

In the morning and afternoon of the next two days Skag brought water to the tigress and bathed her shoulder long. On the third day he could not be sure that the male had left the lair until late afternoon, and when he finally ventured to the mouth and his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness within he saw that the tigress was watching him from the deeper shadows--not p.r.o.ne, but on three feet.