A MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE 



that to my right, across the stream, there was a deeply- 

 wooded ravine running at right angles to the jungle I 

 was beating and to the stream, and of considerable length, 

 the mouth of this ravine being about a hundred yards to 

 my right front. 



About an hour after the pad elephant left me I could 

 hear her in the distance crashing through the jungle, 

 occasionally tearing down boughs and branches. This 

 continued for some time, but soon I heard her giving vent 

 to her feelings in low rumblings, and that peculiar drum 

 sound that elephants make with their trunks when they 

 catch sight of or smell any large animal moving in the 

 jungle before them ; this was varied occasionally by 

 shrill trumpet sounds. I knew from these sounds that the 

 tiger was not only at home, but evidently afoot, possibly 

 close before me, as tigers generally move a long way before 

 the beating line. I was ready for him, with my eyes 

 glued to the edge of the jungle to my front. Suddenly, 

 to my intense disgust, I heard a loud roar about a hundred 

 yards to my right front, almost immediately followed by a 

 plunge and splash, and before I had time to realize what 

 had happened, or to bring my rifle to the shoulder, the 

 tiger plunged across the narrow stream and disappeared 

 into the ravine. 



However, the jungle he had entered was, from my 

 point of view, the best place he could have gone to ; so, 

 calling the beater elephant, we followed in line, carefully 

 beating the dense covert till we reached the end where the 

 ravine terminated abruptly in a perpendicular wall of 

 clay covered by shrubs, but there was no tiger to be seen. 

 We beat the covert again and again with the same result. 

 I then took my elephant out to see whether there was any 

 covert on the further side of the wall, and found there was, 

 and that it was quite large enough to hold the tiger. I 

 beat this covert carefully, but with no better success. I 

 then came to the conclusion that there must be some hole 

 or cave in the front face of the wall which the beast might 

 be concealed in, so returned to the original ravine, and, 

 after a long and careful search, discovered an opening 

 about two feet in diameter, well hidden behind the shrubs. 

 I saw there was only one thing to be done now, viz. to 



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