"There were sounds of woe thereinafter from the cook-room tent, and Graham himself supervised the dinner that night, in order, he explained somewhat apologetically, that I might not suffer from his conceptions of duty. "It was two days after this, and we had shifted camp fifteen miles, when, having occasion to go into Graham's tent after dark, I stumbled over some one sitting among the corner tent-pegs. It was the grandpapa of the white cock, and he explained to me in his lingo--for he was one of the jungle people--that he had come in exchange for that precious bird. One life or another mattered little. Grim-_sahib_ had spared the child's heart's joy, which was now living with him in the maternal mansion. There being, therefore, no necessity for the occupation of hatching eggs, he, Bunder--yea! of a surety, it was the same name as that of the monkey people--had come to do service to the _Huzoors_ instead of the white cock. "That was absolutely all I could get out of him. So for days and weeks he followed us. He was useful in his way, especially to Graham, who had a passion not only for sport, but for all sorts of odd knowledge." I remember interrupting here that that was half the pleasure of new surroundings, to which my fellow-traveller replied drily that he had expected I would say so, as I really reminded him very much of Graham. "This passion of his, however, led him into being a bit reckless, and as the hot weather came on he began to get touched up by fever. Still, he continued working during the off days, and seemed little the worse until one evening when he went to bed with the shivers after a leopard hunt. Then old Bunder crept over to my tent. "'Grim-_sahib_ must go home across the Black Water at once, _Huzoor_,' he said quietly, 'or his bones will whiten the jungle. He has seen the Skeleton Tree.' "That was, in essence, all he had to say, though his explanations were lengthy. It was simply a Skeleton Tree, and it was always seen where fire fingers met; but those who saw it became skeletons in the jungle before long unless they possessed a certain talisman. There were such talismans among the hill tribes, and those who fell sick of fever always wore one if they could compass it. That was not often, since they were rare. He himself had one, but what use was it when life, from old age, had become no more worth than a white cock's? So his grandson wore it; wore it as he fed the joy of his heart peacefully in the ancestral home; thanks to Grim-_sahib!_ "'But how do you know he saw the Tree?' I asked. "'It was when we had crawled up nigh the end of a dip, _Huzoor_,' replied Bunder. 'He looked up and said, "What's that?" And when I asked him what he had seen, he said: "It is gone. It must have been that stunted tree. But it looked like a skeleton, and there were fire fingers round it." So I knew. Send him home, _Huzoor_, away from its power, or his bones will whiten the jungle.'