Ghond remarked: "He must have been frightened to death, for look how heavily he has trodden here. Animals in their normal unafraid state leave very little trace behind, but when frightened, they act as if the terror of being killed weighed their bodies down. This fellow's hoofs have made prodigious and clear marks wherever he went. How frightened he must have been!" At last we reached an impassable river. Its current, according to Ghond, was sharp enough to break our legs had we stepped into it. Strangely enough, the buffalo too had not dared to cross it. So we followed his precedent, looking for more hoof-prints on the bank. In twenty more minutes we found that they swerved off the stream bank and disappeared into a thick jungle which looked black as a pit although it was hardly five in the afternoon. This place could not have been more than half an hour's run from the village, for a wild buffalo of any age. Ghond said: "Do you hear the song of the water?" After listening for several minutes I heard the sound of water kissing the sedges and other grass not far off with gurgling groaning sounds. We were about twenty feet from a lake into which the river ran. "The murderous buffalo is hiding--probably asleep somewhere between here and the lagoon," cried Ghond. "Let us make our home on one of the twin trees yonder. It is getting dark and I am sure he will be here soon. We should not be found on the floor of the jungle when he turns up. There is hardly a space of four feet between the trees!" His last words struck me as curious. So I examined the space between the trees. They were tall and massive, and between them lay a piece of earth just broad enough to afford room for both of us walking abreast of each other. "Now I shall lay down my fear-soaked tunic half-way between these Twins." Then Ghond proceeded to take from under his tunic a bundle of old clothes which he had been wearing until today. He placed them on the ground, then climbed one of the trees. After Ghond had gone up, he swung down a rope ladder for me. I climbed up on it with Gay-Neck fluttering and beating his wings on my shoulders in order to keep his balance. Both of us safely reached the branch on which Ghond was sitting, and since the evening was coming on apace, we sat still for a while. The first thing I noticed as the dusk fell was bird-life. Herons, hornbills, grouse, pheasant, song-sparrows and emerald flocks of parrots seemed to infest the forest. The drone of the bee, the cut-cut-cut of the woodpecker and the shrill cry of the eagle far overhead blended with the tearing crying noises of the mountain torrent and the staccato laughter of the already waking hyenas.