Ill THE BOON AND TERM JUNGLES 17 



admitted of no other explanation. With a low 

 velocity rifle this could never have happened ; 

 and I was tempted for a time to revert to the old 

 •577 and black powder. 



The bagging of this tiger was a great relief to 

 me, and it was with real pleasure I paid the thirty 

 rupees of my bet. 



At different times I had two delightful shoots 

 with my old friend C. : one in our borderland 

 and one in Nepal. Actual sport was on the whole 

 indifferent as the weather and local conditions 

 were unfavourable on both occasions. 



In the Nepal shoot I was again put to sit up 

 for a tiger after a beat. A pair of tiger had killed 

 and dragged the tie-up. While we lunched before 

 beating, the pair came back and lunched also. 

 But we did not get them in the beat, so I was told 

 by my host to sit up. The kill had been dragged 

 to the top of a little rise in bamboo grass and 

 bush jungle. There were no trees, and we fixed 

 up a sort of scaffolding machan with two or three 

 upright bamboos ten feet high, safe enough but 

 too sketchy and cramped for an all-night sit, so 

 an elephant was to come for me at 10 p.m. 



The beats had been late in the afternoon and 

 I only got posted shortly before dusk. Soon I 

 heard the heavy breathing of an animal climbing 

 the hill. This was the male tiger. He puffed 

 up the rise like an old gentleman short of breath, 

 and sat for half an hour in a thick patch on my 

 right where I could hear his every breath. He 

 then crossed my front and sat in another thick 

 patch about twenty yards away to the left front. 

 There was a full moon. The tiger had not as 



C 



