302 THE VILLAGERS TRY TO DECEIVE US. 



The trackers soon thought something was amiss, as no trace of the body's 

 being dragged could he found. One of them remarked that the tigress 

 would hardly eat the whole at once ; whilst, had she carried off the remainder 

 in her jaws, she must have laid it down at the pool in the sandy bed where 

 she had drunk. There was no trace of her having done this. We 

 returned to the aloe-bushes. After examining these for some time, one of 

 the men looked inside a thicket, and with an exclamation turned upon the 

 son-in-law, and giving him a sound box on the ear asked him " what he 

 meant by it." " It " was that the villagers had followed the track with 

 horns and tomtoms (as we subsequently learned) in the morning, and had 

 burnt the remains to avoid police inquiry, the dejected son-in-law acting 

 chief mourner. The ashes of a fire which the tracker now pointed to inside 

 the thicket sufficiently explained the affair. 



The woman was of good caste. Had her death been reported, the remains 

 would have been handled by out-castes, and have formed the subject of a 

 sort of inquest by the police at Chamraj -Nuggar ; to avoid this, the relatives 

 had burnt the remainder of the body as soon as found. What could be 

 clone when the foolish villagers either brought us news too late, or acted in 

 Jhis way ? We sent the now truly smitten son-in-law back to the village, 

 bewailing his mother-in-law more sincerely probably than before ; and finding 

 that the tigress had gone east we returned to Morlay, it being useless to 

 follow her in that direction. 



This death caused great consternation. The villagers concluded that 

 they would now not be safe in their houses at night, and some of the out- 

 lying hamlets would have been temporarily abandoned had the tigress lived 

 much longer. But this was to be her last victim ; though our chances of 

 killing her seemed still as remote as ever, a few more hours were to end 

 her bloody career. 



Next day, the 15th January, I determined upon a more organised plan 

 of hunting her. I arranged that Bommay Gouda and three trackers should 

 go to Iyenpoor, at one end of her usual range, whilst I remained at Morlay. 

 In case of any one being killed near Iyenpoor the men were to let me 

 know immediately ; and I supplied them with strychnine, and a gun charged 

 with powder, as a safeguard in their jungle wanderings. The four men 

 started early in the afternoon. About an hour afterwards one of them 

 came running back, pouring with perspiration and covered with dust, I 

 feared some accident had happened until he found breath to say that the 

 party had met the tigress, and that she was then in Ivarraypoor Guddah, a 

 small hill two miles from camp. Tins hill rose to a height of about two 

 hundred feet out^of a level cultivated plain. On three sides it was almost 



