32 INDIAN BIG GAME chap. 



Govind came up and we shook each other's 

 hands. " A man's fate is written," said he. 



A httle crowd soon collected, and within a short 

 time every one of these men claimed to have been 

 in the fight. 



" All these fine fellows seem to have been there, 

 Govind; where were you and I ? " 



" Sahib, we were at H.," said the old man. 

 (H. is the railway station twenty - two miles 

 away.) 



After this there were a couple of blank days, 

 and I amused myself sitting up for a panther 

 which never came. On the second evening I fell 

 asleep with the little rifle in my lap, and was 

 awakened by feeling it slip, and hearing the 

 cartridges go off as it struck the ground below. 

 There are drawbacks to sitting with the safety 

 catch in the firing position. Both barrels went 

 off, the stock was broken at the pistol hand, and 

 an inch was blown off the muzzle of one barrel. 

 The rifle had luckily landed muzzle down : the 

 other way up might have been awkward. This 

 was the little -318 by Westley Richards, and I 

 was sorely grieved. However, Chand, the brilliant 

 Meerut gunsmith, made me a stock as good as 

 the old one and trimmed and joined the barrels 

 temporarily. I shot a panther with it soon after- 

 wards. Since then it has been overhauled by its 

 makers, the inch has been cut off the other barrel, 

 and it is now making very accurate shooting — 

 that is, when I allow it to do so. 



There was then a tiger kill some miles down 

 the river. I had an outlying shikari there and 

 he made the machan. I could not see to it 



