THE TIGER. 285 



went round a quarter of a circle, but still the tiger 

 remained motionless, looking intently in the same direc- 

 tion. I marclied up, rifle on full-cock, growing more 

 and more amazed — but the tinker never moved. Could 

 he be dead ? I went round to his rear and approached 

 close up from that direction. He never stirred. Then 

 I made the elephant kick him, and he fell over. He 

 was stone dead — converted, without the movement of a 

 hair, into a statue of himself by the bursting of the 

 large shell in his brain. It had struck him full in the 

 centre of the forehead. We then went on with the 

 track of the other. It led dow^n into the Moran river, 

 on the steep bank of which there was a thick cover 

 of Jaman bushes in which the tiger was sure to stop. I 

 had just before come through it, and found the place 

 as full of tracks as a rabbit-warren. Having a spare 

 pad elephant out that day, I sent her round to keep 

 down the bottom of the bank and mark, while I pushed 

 my own elephant — Futteh Rani (Queen of Victory) — 

 through the cover. About the centre I came on the 

 tiger, crouched like the other, with his massive head 

 rested on his forepaws, the drawn-up hind-quarters and 

 slightly switching tail showing that he meant mischief. 

 At the first shot, which struck him on the point of the 

 shoulder, he bounded out at me ; but the left barrel 

 caught him in the back before he had come many yards 

 and broke it, when he rolled right down to the bottom 

 of the bank, and fell, roaring horribly, right between the 

 fore-legs of the pad elephant. She was a new purchase 

 for forest work, called Moti Mala or " Pearl Necklace " 

 (such are the fantastic names given to elephants by their 

 Mahomedan keepers), and quite untried ; but she stood 

 admirably this rather abrupt introduction to her game, 



