up to say that his scouts had returned and reported that 

 there was no tiger to be seen, but that they thought the 

 trap had been sprung. They had not liked to go close up, 

 preferring to observe the spot from a tree some way off. 



The first question was what to do with Jess. We 

 had no collar or chain, of course, and nothing would 

 induce her to stay behind once Ted started ; she 

 would have bitten through ropes and reims in a few 

 minutes, and no kaffir would have faced the job of 

 watching over and checking her. Finally we put her 

 into one of the reed and mud huts, closing the 

 entrance with some raw hides weighted with heavy 

 stones ; and off we went. 



We found the trap sprung and the bait untouched. 

 The spoor was a tiger's, right enough, and we saw 

 where it had circled suspiciously all round before 

 finally entering the little fenced approach which we 

 had built to shepherd it on to the trap. There each 

 footprint was clear, and it appeared that instead of 

 cautiously creeping right up to the bait and stepping 

 on the setting-plate, it had made a pounce at the 

 bait from about ten feet away, releasing the trap by 

 knocking the spring or by touching the plate with the 

 barrel of its body. The tiger had evidently been 

 nipped, but the body was too big for the teeth to close 

 on, and no doubt the spring it gave on feeling the 

 grip underneath set it free with nothing worse than 

 a bad scraping and a tremendous fright. There was 

 plenty of hair and some skin on the teeth of the trap, 

 but very little blood there, and none at all to be found 

 round about. 

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