'Cook!' (Cook answers)
'Coming, sar!' (enter cook): ' Now, cook, you make a good dinner; do you
hear?' Cook: `Yes, sar; master tell, I make.'--`Well, mulligatawny
soup.' 'Yes, sar.'--'Calves' head with tongue and brain sauce.' 'Yes,
sar.'--' Gravy omelette.' 'Yes, sar.'--'Mutton chops.' 'Yes,
sar.'--'Fowl cotelets.' `Yes, sar.'--'Beefsteaks.' 'Yes, sar.'--'Marrow-
bones.' 'Yes, sar.'--'Rissoles.' 'Yes, sar.' All these various dishes he
literally imitated uncommonly well, the different portions of an elk
being their only foundation.
The kennel bench was comfortably littered, and the pack took possession
of their new abode with the usual amount of growling and quarrelling for
places; the angry grumbling continuing throughout the night between the
three champions of the kennel--Smut, Bran, and Killbuck. After a night
much disturbed by this constant quarrelling, we unkennelled the hounds
just as the first grey streak of dawn spread above Totapella Peak.
The mist was hanging heavily on the lower parts of the plain like a
thick snowbank, although the sky was beautifully clear above, in which a
few pale stars still glimmered. Long lines of fog were slowly drifting
along the bottoms of the valleys, dispelled by a light breeze, and day
fast advancing bid fair for sport; a heavy dew lay upon the grass, and
we stood for some moments in uncertainty as to the first point of our
extensive hunting-grounds that we should beat. There were fresh tracks
of elk close to our 'lodge,' who had been surveying our new settlement
during the night. Crossing the river by wading waist-deep, we skirted
along the banks, winding through a narrow valley with grassy hills
capped with forest upon either side. Our object in doing this was to
seek for marks where the elk had come down to drink during the night, as
we knew that the tracks would then lead to the jungle upon either side
the river. We had strolled quietly along for about half a mile, when the
loud bark of an elk was suddenly heard in the jungle upon the opposite
hills. In a moment the hounds dashed across the river towards the
well-known sound, and entered the jungle at full speed. Judging the
direction which the elk would most probably take when found, I ran along
the bank of the river, down stream, for a quarter of a mile, towards a
jungle through which the river flowed previous to its descent into the
lower plains, and I waited, upon a steep grassy hill, about a hundred
feet above the river's bed. From this spot I had a fine view of the
ground. Immediately before me, rose the hill from which the elk had
barked; beneath my feet, the river stretched into a wide pool on its
entrance to the jungle.
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