Well, why not? You have seen a baby pulling his Papa's hair. The Papa just loves the baby all the more for it. So it is with the buffalo and the little tot. And it would not matter a bit whether the tot were a little boy or a little girl. The big buffalo is fond of both. And now I shall tell you a wonderful true story about a buffalo and a boy. CHAPTER VIII The Buffalo and the Boy In a village there were many tame buffaloes, and among them thirty bull buffaloes. The little boys of the village took charge of them every day. The smartest boy among them was called Gulab. He was six years of age. Gulab knew quite well each of the thirty bull buffaloes, and was a friend of each. Sometimes he alone had charge of them, and took them out to graze and to wallow. That was because his father was the herdsman. The buffaloes loved Gulab, and they did exactly as he told them to do. When he was going to take them to the fields, he would just stamp his little bare foot and call out to them "Stand in rows!" And the huge animals would stand in rows, one line behind another. Then Gulab would come around to the side, and see if each line was straight. If the line was not quite straight, and a buffalo happened to be standing too much this way or that, Gulab would walk up to the buffalo and spank him on the jaw. Then the buffalo would move into line, exactly as Gulab wanted him to do. Or, if a buffalo happened to be standing too far behind, Gulab would come around to the back and twist the buffalo's tail, and the buffalo would move up into line. Then, when the whole herd was in the right order, Gulab would come to the front of the herd, and walk up to the biggest bull. "Bend down your head, Baldo!" he would order. And Baldo, the biggest bull, in the middle of the front line, would bend down his head, and Gulab would climb up by one of the horns, scramble up Baldo's neck, and sit down on his back. "March!" Gulab would order--and the whole herd would march. Now, a few miles away there was a grand palace. In the palace was a little Prince, whose father was a Rajah--that is, a kind of king. The little Prince's birthday was coming, and his father ordered grand feasts for many days. The Rajah had six English friends, who were quite big men. The Englishmen were very fond of tiger hunting, so the Rajah wanted to order a tiger hunt for them. But it is not easy to have a tiger hunt just when you want to have it. Why not? Because the tiger will _not_ come out and be hunted just when you want him to. He would rather stay in his den. So for a few days no one heard of a tiger prowling about. Then suddenly a strange piece of news came from that village where Gulab lived. It happened in this way: One day Gulab took out the buffaloes to graze and to wallow. The buffaloes lay down in the shallow water for a while, and Gulab splashed about or tumbled in the mud near them. Then he got tired of doing that, and came out on the bank and played about there for a while.