THE PINJIH RHINO. 15 



many efforts were made to bring it to account. But 

 (partly on account of the native trackers being afraid 

 to bring their men up to the brute) something always 

 went wrong. Once the District Magistrate managed 

 to get on terms with it, but was charged so often and 

 so determinedly in very thick scrub that he had to 

 beat a retreat and leave the rhinoceros master of the 

 field. In the dull record of failures there was, how- 

 ever, one light spot. The attendant spirit of kramat 

 animals has power to deceive the hunter by altering 

 the appearance of the hunted animal or by giving 

 its shape to one of the hunters or their attendants, 



and on one occasion a gallant officer in the N 



Regiment fell its victim. Leaving his pad elephant 

 in the forest with a Malay in charge, he proceeded one 

 day to set off on foot to look for fresh tracks. He 

 walked for hours, until suddenly his tracker stopped 

 him and silently pointed out the outline of a huge 

 animal in front of them. M. took a steady aim and 

 fired : a scream from a sorely-stricken elephant and 

 a yell from a terrified Malay were his answer. He had 

 walked in a circle and had fired at his own elephant. 

 As the smoke cleared he caught a glimpse of the 

 elephant rushing madly through the forest and had a 

 full view of the Malay bellowing on the ground. The 

 wretched man had been quietly smoking his cigarette 

 on the elephant's neck, and now, lying where he fell 

 was only in doubt whether a bullet- wound or a broken 

 neck was the cause of his death. Both elephant and 

 man recovered, the Malay the quicker of the two, for 

 the elephant, though the wound healed, was never fit 

 for work again ; but both had a lucky escape, for the 



