8 INDIAN BIG GAME 



morning, to a small isolated clump of rocks where 

 we lost them. We hunted among the rocks ; but 

 not, as I now think, nearly thoroughly enough, 

 for I believe a crawling search would have found 

 him dead. 



Next year I went after bison. The following 

 one, F. and B. and I, all gunners, had a fine 

 shoot, getting 18 tiger (including 5 cubs unavoid- 

 ably shot), 6 panther, and 1 bear. F. was a first- 

 class organizer, shikari, and linguist. 



We had the best lot of shikaris I have ever 

 seen — six of them, under a head man. Farced 

 Khan. The latter's was the directing spirit. He 

 was a well-educated man with bad nerves, and he 

 never went into a beat. We wondered how he 

 kept his prestige. The six men under him were 

 hard-bitten sons of Ishmael, good keen men, fit 

 to run a beat or to go on detached work. We 

 had our November and February reconnaissances. 

 The latter gave us detailed information of the 

 whereabouts of tiger, and to it much of our 

 success was due. " Time spent in reconnaissance 

 is seldom wasted," says the soldier's bible. 



The quality of the beating and of the shikar 

 work was shown by the fact that only one tiger 

 was lost out of a beat, and that we had few 

 difficult shots. This last is one of the sure signs 

 of good beating. Galloping animals mean bad 

 work. 



Of course with so many shikaris the handling 

 of machans, stops, and line was made easy. The 

 principle of putting out stops was that followed 

 by the good men I had with me in 1921. The 

 shikaris started the stops from the centre gun 



