The Tiger 253 



very dense cover of jaman and tamarisk in the bed and on 

 the banks of the river, a few miles above Bhadiigaon. 

 Having been hard pushed the previous day, we hoped that 

 he might lie up here ; and, indeed, there was no other place 

 he could well go to for water and shade. So we circled 

 round the outside of the cover, and finding no track leading 

 outside, considered him fairly ringed. We then went over 

 to the village for breakfast, intending to return in the heat 

 of the day. 



" About eleven o'clock we again faced the scorching hot 

 wind, and made silently for the cover where the man-eater 

 lay. I surrounded it with scouts on trees, and posted a 

 pad-elephant at the only point where he could easily get 

 up the high bank and make off, and then pushed old 

 Sarju slowly and carefully through the cover. Peafowl 

 rose in numbers from every bush as we advanced, and a 

 few hares and other small animals bolted out at the edges 

 — such thick green covers being the midday resort of all 

 the life in the neighborhood in the hot weather. About 

 its centre the jungle was extremely thick, and the bottom 

 was cut up into a number of parallel water-channels among 

 the strong roots and overhanging branches of the tamarisk. 



" Here the elephant paused and began to kick the earth, 

 and to utter the low tremulous sound by which some of these 

 animals denote the close presence of a tiger. We peered 

 all about with beatings of the heart ; and at last the ma- 

 hout, who was lower down on the elephant's neck, said he 

 saw him lying beneath a thick Jaman bush. We had some 

 stones in the howdah, and I made the Lalla, who was 

 behind me in the back seat, pitch one into the bush. 



