60 RIFLE AND ROMANCE 



As the thud of the shot regurgitated from the echoing 

 hills there was a crash in the undergrowth. Presently the 

 brooding silence returned ; and far down the winding glen 

 rose the distant cry of a startled plover. 



Many years had come and gone since that night in the 

 valley under old Abaptir, when the tiger, after having been 

 so narrowly missed, had, in no sweet frame of mind, 

 hurried for a couple of miles down the dry bed of the 

 mountain river to the Ambad6h pool, met a tigress accom- 

 panied by two big cubs, found five young buffaloes that 

 had been driven there to water and left alone and loose in 

 that dark jungle by the sportman's erring employees, and 

 joined in the savage chase that ensued. Of those five 

 Mas only one had escaped untouched ; the rest had 

 been skilfully herded up into a secluded ravine, and there 

 wantonly butchered, three of the wretched animals being 

 pulled down within the radius of a few yards. Next 

 morning four tigers had been seen leaving a neighbour- 

 ing waterhole at dawn ; they were playing ponderously 

 together, clawing down the stem of a soft-barked tree, 

 and then slowly ascending the hillside. But then they 

 had cunningly separated, nor did one of them return next 

 night to the scene of carnage. 



As for the tiger of our story, he had for a long while 

 disappeared from the jungles of the Melghat, and those 

 long years had taught him much wile. 



One terrible day was there marked deep on his memory, 

 when, in the distant Central Provinces, he had been tracked 

 and located in a most unfavourable position by a party of 

 his worst enemies the ubiquitous sahibs. It is true that 

 he never took another bait after his experiences at Muing- 

 pati, nor returned a second time to any " kill " save those 

 of deer or pig ; but on this one occasion his craft had 

 overreached itself, and he had been imposed on by a 



