14 GUN, RIFLE, AND HOUND. 



was going to the hills on leave turned his man over 

 to me. This one was certainly the best shikari at 

 the station, but I often longed for the "trackers'' 

 of Ceylon. Still, he had seen tigers killed, and was 

 full of the glowing accounts of the sport he had 

 shown a former master in some jungles fifty miles 

 to the southward. Unfortunately, my Colonel was 

 rather a dragon in the matter of leave, and it was out 

 of the question that I could get away except from 

 after my work on Saturday till daylight on Monday 

 morning. 



So the hot weather passed away without my being 

 able to bag any more formidable specimens of the 

 carnivora than the lynx, rather a rare animal in India, 

 the leopard, and the skulking hyaena. Nevertheless, 

 I did not neglect to make constant inquiries, and sent 

 my shikari in every direction to search, stimulating 

 his zeal with promises of princely reward (i.e., from 

 his point of view) if I should succeed in bagging or 

 even getting a chance at "stripes." 



At last, at the beginning of September after the 

 rains were over, my shikari arrived at the bungalow 

 as I was dressing for my evening ride. " What has 

 he got to say ?" I asked my dressing boy. " Says he 

 got khubber (intelligence) of tiger, sahib, and plenty 

 sambur." Now I had heard this sort of khubber before, 

 and the tiger generally turned out to be a hyaena, or 

 at best a leopard, both of which the shikari described 

 as chota bagh (small tiger). So feeling decidedly 

 sceptical, out I went to interview the dirty object- 

 squatting on the verandah. 



