i8 RIFLE AND ROMANCE 



began to drag itself painfully along the ground. The 

 tiger-cub watched it curiously at first. He was undecided 

 whether to remain cowering there or run away back to 

 mother. After a while he crept forward, tense-limbed 

 and trembling, and, stretching out his nose, cautiously 

 smelt in its direction. His hair bristled. Suddenly he 

 drew back. Still the young lungoor crawled feebly away. 

 The cub crept forward again, growling to himself. As he 

 glared at the creature before him his bristles rose again. 

 He lay flat, his black-spotted ears went back wickedly, his 

 little tail curved convulsively once, twice. He sprang 

 forward and clutched the little monkey as a kitten pats a 

 worsted ball. 



Again he rushed off sidewise, and stared. 



Then he crouched once more ; his tail twitched again ; 

 his baleful, bleary eyes glared. There was a rush and a 

 moan. He struck strongly into the yielding flesh with 

 sharp, bared claws, ears pressed tightly backward, struck 

 and growled ferociously; and, dragging the monkey down 

 under him, bit it savagely behind the ears. The smell and 

 taste of blood infuriated his nature. He bit and bit 

 again. 



A terrible outcry and rushing about meanwhile in the 

 trees; then something scampered yelling close by him 

 through the leaves and grass. Loosing the now inert 

 flesh, he bounded suddenly after it, striking out eagerly 

 and comprehensively with outstretched claws and the 

 wretched mother-monkey hardly regained her trees in 

 time! 



Then the cub returned slowly to that, his first "kill." 

 After smelling it inquisitively awhile, he seized it firmly 

 two or three times in his jaws, stood an instant, then, tail 

 on end, head up, marched strongly away, dragging it with 

 him into the grass and shade. His mother and sister had 

 now approached, and snarled horribly in unison, but he 

 remained in the grass, and, facing them, laid back his 



