LUCK AT LAST WITH TIGER 107 



like the monarch of the jungle that he was, and 

 offering a lovely broadside shot. Before even 

 my gun-bearer saw him I had my Ubique on him, 

 and took a beautiful sight on his left shoulder 

 and pulled the trigger, but no response from my 

 weapon. For one brief second I lowered my 

 rifle, and then remembered it was the left barrel 

 I must fire. This time my aim was much quicker 

 and, I knew, not so good ; the tiger had come 

 to a standstill, evidently observing my tracker, 

 who had moved a pace or two ahead of me 

 before he caught sight of Stripes. 



I fired, and heard the thud of the bullet 

 striking him somewhere. The tiger sprang round, 

 and somehow went between two upright bamboos 

 not wide enough apart to let a man squeeze 

 through sideways. With a grin of satisfaction 

 the shikari pointed out some blood-stained fat 

 smeared on the right-hand bamboos, thus showing 

 that the bullet had gone through him, which 

 was natural, as I had fired a solid conical ; and 

 we found him stretched dead a little further off. 



A cub belonging to the blind tigress I shot in 

 April was afterwards brought to me by a native. 

 It seems the cub broke into the goat kraal one 

 night, killed a goat, but was hazy as to where to get 

 out. The herdsman, hearing a commotion, came 

 out of his hut and found the intruder, which he shot. 



The cub had still its milk teeth, so could not 

 have been more than a year or eighteen months 

 old, and no doubt fell an easy victim owing to 

 the loss of its mother. 



Two of the three tiger cubs I captured, died ; 

 the third throve, and is in the Lai Bagh Gardens 



