A SHOOT IN AN INDIAN STATE 41 



should hold the rifle muzzle while I pulled the 

 trigger. But finding most youths somewhat 

 sketchy, I determined to rest the rifle on a cross- 

 bar, and hoped not to have to do any following- 

 up at first. Constant daily practice and massage 

 soon improved matters. Indeed the only time 

 I felt serious inconvenience was with the first 

 tigress, on the 10th of April. 



The beat was beautifully managed and the 

 tigress came in at a swinging trot straight for my 

 machan, but at more of an angle than I had ex- 

 pected. I could not get the rifle round, and made 

 a clean miss at thirty yards. The tigress swung 

 with a roar to her right at a gallop, but throwing 

 myself forward I was able to get the muzzle to 

 the left and dropped her dead with a raking shot. 

 There were four of her cubs, as big as small 

 panthers, in the beat. Two found their mother 

 and refused to leave her. I did all I could to 

 drive them off, but they would not go, and I had 

 to shoot them to prevent injury to the beaters. 



Previous to this a small panther killed a goat 

 in a pen near camp, and dragged it through a hole 

 about the size of a football. Both shikaris were 

 away at work. I tracked this brute and, by a 

 fluke, found his kill in a nullah some way off. I 

 spent the day making a machan, sat up, heard 

 crunching, turned on the light, and missed my 

 friend at four yards' range with a ball out of a shot- 

 gun. This was one of those hopeless misses with 

 which the devil afflicts me at intervals and which 

 make life a burden. I was the more vexed, for I 

 wanted to impress the shikaris with my skill in 

 bagging a panther without any help from them. 



