BY TAMARIND AND MHOWA 181 



men unlooses the cords round his fetlock and drives him 

 off in the direction of the nearest pool ; while we continue 

 on our way. 



A few hundred yards further on we stop. Look at that 

 the fresh and deeply indented four toes and a pad of a 

 tiger ! A big one, too ! He came off the bank there, and 

 down on to the sand. His tracks are seen leading far 

 along the river-bed in a long dotted line, and we follow 

 them. Capricious beast, he walked now in the centre, now 

 under the high bank, now over a soft mound of shingle, 

 leaving great shallow depressions in it, or, on favourable 

 soil, the clearly impressed square " pug " of the big male. 

 Now we are approaching the second bait, and delight to 

 see the steady tracks leading straight on in its direction. 

 Almost as if we had been actual eye-witnesses can we 

 picture his sudden halt last night, as he turned that corner 

 and saw the poor little buff tethered there before him. So 

 we, too, cautiously turn the corner in that winding water- 

 course. 



The htta is gone ! The bait taken ! 



A couple of patient, inquisitive crows are perched not 

 far from where he was tied. As we gaze, there is a distant 

 "Caw/" and a third is seen flying low through the trees 

 to join them. Save for this there is a grim, death-like still- 

 ness. We stare from a distance. 



See! That rope that confined the little buffalo's hind 

 leg; it hangs, broken, from the root to which he was 

 fastened. There is the trail of a heavy body dragged 

 along the sand and away round the corner of a little branch 

 ndla. This, as we know from our inspection of the sur- 

 roundings yesterday evening, leads only a hundred yards 

 or so into the grassy jungle, and terminates in a cul-de-sac. 

 There is no thicker covert in all this bandi than that formed 

 by the low tamarisks which fill this little branch ravine ; 

 but it is of small extent, and a few well-directed stones 

 would search it thoroughly. 



