BEATING FOR BEAR IN CHOTA NAGPUR 43 



obviously missed. I loyally tried not to think it, but I 

 knew D. must have been asleep — the last enormity to be 

 committed by the occupier of a machan. I was absolutely 

 horrified and dared not look in the direction of that machan 

 from which I heard subdued voices coming. The shot had 

 one effect. It stopped the frivolity in No. 5. 



The beat approached. The noise was prodigious, inter- 

 rupted by peals of laughter from the Kols who were enjoy- 

 ing their outing immensely. A prolonged howl and a bear 

 appeared on a rock sixty yards from me. I fired on the 

 instant, for he was high above the beaters. He disappeared, 

 and for a second I thought I had killed him. In a flash he 

 was in front of my machan, and as he passed within twenty 

 yards I fired again, and he dropped and rolled over down 

 the hill. Seizing the smooth-bore, in which I had a spherical 

 lead bullet, I fired again and he was pulled up by a rock 

 and lay quiet. At the same moment I heard a shot on my 

 left. Turning, I was just in time to see another bear passing 

 D.'s machan, and on the instant it fell, crumpled up and dead 

 to the second barrel. 



These shots had roused the beaters to a frenzy. They 

 were quite close, and I could see the men below bounding 

 from rock to rock. Suddenly another rifle shot clove the 

 air, followed by a second, and after a brief interval by a 

 third. Again the uproar from the beaters who now climbed 

 up to the fine of machans. 



Our orders were to sit tight where we were till the small 

 third beat was over. But the news was passed along that 

 T. had bagged a bear, so that we had three more as the 

 result of the second beat. 



The third beat was short and quickly over and proved 

 blank. 



Again the party collected near my machan, and D. had 

 to answer some pertinent enquiries as to what the first shot 

 fired in beat No. 2 was at, and what the result ! I carefully 

 kept my mouth shut and so, of course, did his wife. The 

 other lady had been asleep, as had D. ! 



We were to have tea under the big banyan trees at the 

 foot of the hill, before the party started back to the Station. 

 I had to catch the night mail back to my camp many miles 

 away, as I had no permission to be away more than the one 

 day. It was a heavy heart I carried as we commenced to 

 wend our way down the rocky hill. I noted that T. had 



