60 A COOL HAND. 



After beating, as we imagined, most thoroughly through 

 the rice-fields, we reached a bushy ravine, in which we all, 

 with one exception, thought the brute must have concealed 

 itself. The exception was a tea-planter who had joined 

 the party. He was one of the best mountain-hunters, and 

 about as cool a hand as I ever met, and quite a character 

 in his way. Originally in the army, his predilection for 

 wild sport had been the cause of his leaving it and tak- 

 ing to tea-planting and shooting in the hills. He now 

 expressed his opinion that the leopard was still lurking 

 somewhere in the rice-fields, and his intention of taking his 

 chance alone of finding it there whilst we beat through the 

 ravine. We had just begun driving it when I heard him 

 shouting to us. Supposing he had seen the leopard and 

 was calling us back, I at once ran up towards where he was 

 standing with the butt of his rifle on the ground. To my 

 astonishment and concern, on reaching him I saw that he 

 was profusely bleeding from a wound on his face, and that 

 his coat was all torn and bloody. With his characteristic 

 coolness he quietly remarked, " He's boned me "; but from 

 the expression and pallor of his face, I could see he was 

 more injured than he cared to allow. It appeared that 

 after our leaving him he had but just commenced wandering 

 about in search of the leopard, when it suddenly sprang on 

 him from behind, making its teeth meet in the upper part 

 of his arm, and driving one of its claws into his face within 

 an inch of his eye ; and before he had time to use his rifle, 

 even had he been able to do so, the beast had bounded 

 away and was out of sight in a moment. 



After bandaging up the tea-planter's wounds and ar- 

 ranging for getting him conveyed home, we renewed our 

 search for the leopard. Although we beat about until 

 evening, all our endeavours to find it were fruitless, nor 

 was it again heard of in the vicinity. The hero of this 

 hunt was not long in recovering from his wounds, of which, 

 if he be still living, he bears the scars on his face and arm 



