140 RIFLE AND ROMANCE 



This time the victim was an old woman. She had been 

 seized half-way up the main glen, near a place named * Bera 

 Pani.' Bera Pani was a kind of rendezvous for grass- 

 cutters, where they collected their grass bundles to be 

 carted down to the village. 



This poor old lady had come up the valley with a party 

 of Korkus, who had scattered in search of grass. Her son, 

 a child of ten or so, was with her. Son and mother sepa- 

 rated during their work. At midday the boy heard the 

 sound of a fall, and a kind of gurgle, but thought it was 

 his mother throwing down a heavy bundle of grass and 

 then clearing her throat. There were grasscutters all over 

 the hillsides, who called out to each other occasionally, and 

 from the ravine hard by, down at Bera Pani, came the 

 cheerful tinkling of bells as the bullocks stood grazing 

 near the carts. 



In the late afternoon the boy carried his load of grass to 

 the carts, but his mother did not appear. Becoming 

 anxious after a while, he went uphill again in search of her, 

 and presently came on her grass bundles, then on her sickle. 

 Further on he saw blood-smears on the grass stems ; which 

 so terrified him that he bolted like a deer back to Bra 

 Pani, screaming, " Tiger ! tiger ! ! " 



In a moment the cry had spread to the grasscutters yet 

 on the hill, who rushed huddling together, and were shortly 

 afterwards chattering and gesticulating round the mother- 

 less boy. After a while half a dozen men banded together, 

 and, armed with sticks and hatchets, followed the tracks of 

 the " kill " and drag, shouting, and beating trees, up a side 

 ndla. First they came on the woman's sari, then on the 

 body itself one leg eaten. The panther was slinking off 

 uphill, having been actually seated tearing at his prey 

 when disturbed. One of the Korkus, having been em- 

 ployed by me previously on my excursions in these hills, 

 had the presence of mind to persuade his companions to 

 leave the body as it lay and send for me. A bungle, how- 



