Noreen’s arrival in the district the previous year and her instant popularity were galling to the older woman.  But after a while, finding that her sneers and thinly-veiled bitter speeches against the girl had no effect on the men, she changed her tactics and pretended to make a bosom friend of her.

When all the company had assembled at the club, luncheon was served at a long, rough wooden table.  Beside Noreen sat the man she liked best in the little colony, a grey-haired planter named Payne.  Many of the younger men had striven hard to win her favour, and several had wished to marry her; but, liking them all, none had touched her heart.  She felt most at ease with Payne, who was a quiet, elderly man and a confirmed bachelor.  And he cordially reciprocated her liking.

During tiffin Fred Daleham called out from the far end of the table: 

“I say, Payne, I wish you’d convince that young sister of mine that wild elephants can be dangerous beasts.”

“They can indeed,” replied Payne, turning to Noreen.  “Take my advice and keep out of their way.”

“Oh, but isn’t it only rogues that one need be afraid of?” the girl asked.  “And aren’t they rare?”

“These jungles are full of them, Miss Daleham,” said another planter.  “We’ve had two men on our garden killed already this year.”

“The Forest Officer told me that several guards and wood-cutters have been attacked lately,” joined in another.  “One brute has held up the jungles around Mendabari for months.”

“Oh, don’t tell us any more, Mr. Lane,” cried Mrs. Rice with affected timidity.  “I shall be afraid to leave the bungalow.”

“I heard that the fellow commanding the Military Police detachment at Ranga Duar was nearly killed by a rogue lately,” remarked an engineer named Goddard.  “Our mahout had the story from one of the mahouts of the Fort.  He had a cock-and-bull yarn about the sahib being saved by his tame elephant, a single-tusker, which drove off the rogue.  But, as the latter was a double tusker, it’s not a very likely tale.”

“They’ve got a still more wonderful story about that fellow in Ranga Duar,” remarked a planter named Lulworth.  “They say he can do anything with wild elephants, goes about the jungle with a herd and they obey him like a pack of hounds.”

The men near him laughed.

“Good old Lulworth!” said one.  “That beats Goddard’s yarn.  Did you make it up on the spot or did it take you long to think it out?”

Lulworth smiled good humouredly.

“Oh, it’s not an original lie,” he replied.  “I had it from a half-bred Gurkha living in the forest village near my garden.”

“Who is commanding Ranga Duar?” asked Lane.

“A fellow called Dermot; a Major,” replied Goddard.

“Dermot?  I wonder if by any chance it’s a man who used to be in these parts before—­commanded Buxa Duar when there was a detachment of an Indian regiment there,” said Payne.