22 DIARY OF A SPORTSMAN NATURALIST 



lucky hit, vowing I would never act like that again, and so 

 forth. We have all been through it ! The orderly with me 



slept like a log, and 

 snored and grunted at 

 intervals. I could not 

 sleep a wink. Anxiety 

 kept me awake. With 

 the first grey appear- 

 ance of the dawn I strained my eyes downwards. Dimly 

 I made out the outline of the kill. There was no 

 tiger lying on or near it. I still hoped that he might be in 

 the neighbourhood, badly wounded perhaps ! As soon as 

 it was light enough we carefully surveyed the stony beds 

 of the two streams, but could see nothing. We then 

 descended and hunted from below all round the kill, but 

 found no trace of the tiger save for his pug marks nor any 

 blood. 



There is another tiger incident, I remember, in con- 

 nexion with this district. I was out on duty bent with an 

 assistant, M. We had parted on the slope of a forest- 

 covered hiU, I going straight to the top, only a few hundred 

 yards away, he with orders to make a slight detour to 

 inspect some work and then to join me at the top. I had 

 just arrived at the summit, and was standing to get my 

 breath and look round me, when I heard hurried foot- 

 steps behind. I turned. My assistant was advancing 

 rapidly, and as I caught sight of his face, pale and tense 

 with excitement, I jokingly said, " What on earth's the 

 matter ? You look as if you had met a tiger." In jerky 

 words M. replied that that was just what he had done. 



" What ! " I exclaimed, " impossible here." However, 

 he soon convinced me— words and manner were convincing 

 enough. M. had apparently got on to a narrow, stony 

 animal run, which followed a contour round the hill, and 

 turning a corner sharply had come face to face with a tiger 

 within fifteen yards. The man stopped, petrified with 

 amazement, and stared at the beast. The tiger recovered 

 himself first, or felt fear first, for he was obviously as sur- 

 prised as the man, and with a startled " wuff " sprang into 

 the jungle and disappeared. M., who was quite unarmed, 

 turned and more or less stumbled blindly up the hill after 

 me — at least, this is how he expressed it. He did not take 

 long to recover, and then fury took him at the fright he had 



