Tigers, Gaur and Leopards. 163 



zyat, still four o'clock next morning saw me leaving 

 my tent for another hard day's work, this time 

 buoyed up by the hopes of getting the prize. We 

 took a short cut, so reached the spot where we had 

 parted with our quarry last night soon after daybreak, 

 and we had not advanced a mile, when we heard 

 growling and snarling, so guessed that the gaur was 

 the bone of contention between two felines. Where 

 this scene was being enacted we crept up inch by 

 inch on all fours. Coming out of daylight into the 

 obscurity of this dense thicket, it was some time 

 before we could distinguish objects around us ; at 

 last on my left front I saw an immense dark mass, 

 with two leopards snarling at one another, ready to 

 do battle for the carcase, although the flesh before 

 them would have sufficed to feed a dozen of their race 

 for a week ! Kaising my body, till I was on my 

 knees, I took a shot at the nearest, but just as I fired, 

 he sprang forward and I in consequence made a clean 

 miss, but as the two closed I fired again and I 

 believe the solid conical passed through both, for 

 they separated at once and went off. The gaur was 

 stone dead, and I tried to follow the leopards, but 

 there was very little blood and as they had gone 

 in opposite directions, I left them for the time being, 

 intending to look them up later on. The shikarie 

 went for men to cut off the head of the gaur, and to 

 bring home the meat which to them would be a 

 godsend. The giant bull was fully twenty-one hands 

 high, and the greatest breadth of his horns from bend 

 to bend was fifty-seven and a half inches. At 2 P.M., 

 Shoay-Boh, with some twenty followers, turned up, 

 and, to my great disgust, with them a mounted 



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