160 INDIAN BIG GAME chap. 



marks of tiger. I put in soft-nosed bullets, and 

 so lost a chance at a fine bull which we met on 

 the road, and which went off with a crash as I 

 was changing cartridges. 



The great trouble was the length of the grass. 

 We stalked a herd one day into an open clearing 

 that we should call a sot in North India. I knew 

 there was a good bull, for I saw his horns ; but I 

 could see nothing to fire at, and finally, in despair, 

 climbed a tree which covered a lighter patch of 

 grass. A cow and a calf, and later two cows, 

 grazed directly under my tree, but I was glad the 

 bull did not come, for it would have been an 

 unsporting shot. 



Another day we came on a herd early in the 

 morning, and, after getting up to them three 

 times, we gave them our wind badly and they went 

 off. Here again we saw only a forest of horns, 

 though in our third stalk we made a detour at a 

 run, got behind the herd, and came on the bull. 

 But I could only see a brown mass with no definite 

 mark to aim at, and so did not fire, to the ill- 

 concealed disgust of my little jungle men. This 

 bull was on the track at the far side of the herd : 

 apparently, so far as my limited knowledge goes, 

 these animals always stand facing their tracks, 

 with, in the case of a herd, the bull furthest away 

 and all his harem as sentinels. 



After the herd went off the bull soon took a 

 line of his own, and we followed him from 7 a.m. 

 to 3 P.M. We had great fun tracking, and got 

 up to him five times, and used to see his big 

 horns peeping out above the grass. We tried 

 to get up to him, stooping, crawling, and once up 



