Of course the hunt was over for that day. Two or three of the party went into the jungle with some of the natives and found the tiger had fallen dead a couple of hundred yards from where he had been shot. He was a huge creature, and other men had to be fetched to enable them to skin him and take the trophy home.
The young native doctor, called in the emergency to attend Frank, assured Gilbert that though the wound was severe and likely to lay his brother up for some time, it was not mortal. As he could not be moved, Mr. Macgregor begged the brothers to consider his house their home; a chaprassi was therefore despatched to fetch clothes, &c., from their own bungalow and to notify Frank's accident to the authorities.
"Do you know who saved my brother's life?" Gilbert asked Vansie, the first time they found themselves alone.
"No, how should I?" she answered; "do you know?"
"It was Hari Rām himself," answered Gilbert. "I recognised him as he stood over my brother and then rushed back into the jungle. I was close to him, I think he saw me, for he smiled and waved his hand to me."
Vansie's eyes shone.
"I'm not surprised; it was exactly the sort of thing he'd do," she said.
"I was just going to call out 'Hari Rām' when I remembered he was an outlaw, and that every man's hand was against him, so I checked myself," continued Gilbert; "and now, whatever happens, I'll never run that man down or put any one on his track."