256 RIFLE AND ROMANCE 



that ever roamed a jungle. Whenever there was a puzzling 

 bit of woodcraft to accomplish, a particularly cunning 

 beast to circumvent, it was my wont to call up old Jhapoo 

 with a request that he should l jddoo kard! make magic 

 knowing full well that the old fellow's inscrutable ex- 

 pression, which I delighted to watch on such occasions, 

 merely hid the satisfaction he felt at utterly mystifying my 

 other men. As to myself, his attitude was one of amused 

 toleration, with a look as if to say he knew what I thought 

 about it, and of course what the sahib did not know was 

 not worth knowing ! 



"You may read about the marvellous craft of the 

 American Red Indian, but I doubt if a 'Deerfoot' or 

 ' Pathfinder ' ever existed who could hold a candle to my 

 Jhdpoo. The man was a marvel. I could tell you tales 

 by the score of his extraordinary skill at every branch of 

 the game. His tracking ! the way in which, single-handed, 

 he would literally round up a tiger and guide it past my 

 post ! His unerring knowledge of every little peculiarity, 

 sign, or even thought of the creatures we pursued all 

 these would fill a book from cover to cover. 



" But I am wandering from the point ; my tale concerns 

 the very extraordinary occurrence that befell on the one 

 and only occasion when Jhdpoo initiated me into his 

 mysteries one that I would gladly never have experienced 

 and the still queerer things concerning the strange legacy 

 he left me. 



" It was the middle of the * hot weather/ and we had 

 been for several days on the track of a huge man-eating 

 tiger, that infested the jungles of Manjr6d, bordering the 

 river Tapti. He had his beat among the rudely cultivated 

 tracts that lay along the course of the river and appeared 

 as little oases in the sea of jungle that in those days 

 covered the surrounding country; and it was now here, 

 now there, at those little clearings, that he would appear, 

 sometimes in broad daylight, carry off his human prey, 



