THE TIGER. 297 



had sent out the Ldlhi with a double gun to shoot some 

 birds for their feathers with a view to salmon flies. He 

 came upon the tracks of a tiger, and, contrary to 

 all orders, tied out a calf at night as a bait, and sat 

 over it in a tree with the gun. The tigress came and 

 received his bullet in the thigh, going ofi" wounded into 

 a very thick cover in the bed of a river. The plucky 

 but foolish Ldlla followed her in there the next mornino: 

 by the blood ; but soon found that tracking up a 

 wounded tiger with a gun is a very different thing 

 from following about uninjured tigers without intent to 

 disturb them. Before he had gone a dozen paces 

 the tigress was upon him, his unfired gun dashed from 

 his hands and buried for half its length in the sand, his 

 turban cuffed from his head to the top of a high 

 tree by a stroke of her paw that narrowly missed his 

 head, and himself down below the furious beast, and 

 being slowly chewed from shoulder to ankle. He was 

 brought in a dozen miles to Khandwa, where I was, 

 by some men who had gone in for him when the tigress 

 left him. The fire of delirium was then in his eye, and 

 he raved of the tiger's form passing before him, red and 

 bloody. But he recognised me when I came to him, 

 and conjured me to go out forthwith and bring in 

 her body next day if I wished to see him live. I 

 knew that the natives have a superstition to this effect ; 

 and, though I was then in a high fever, I sent off 

 my elephant at midnight to a village near the spot, 

 following myself on horseback at daybreak. Much rain 

 had fallen, and all old tracks were obliterated. The 

 jungle was also very green and thick, and I spent 

 the whole day till the afternoon, hunting, as I after- 

 wards found, in a wrong direction. At last I came 

 on a fresh trail, with one hind-foot dragging in the sand. 



