TIGERLAND 



our success, the former declaring most emphatically that 

 he had suspected all the time that there was a tiger in this 

 particular beat ! which, to say the least of it, was about 

 as unblushing a falsehood as ever man uttered, and of 

 which I soon convicted him by asking, " Why the something, 

 then, had he allowed me to place myself in so extremely 

 awkward and unsafe a position ? " 



Of course, he had no excuse to offer, and as the beaters, 

 too, who had been carefully examining the body, and had 

 found from some unmistakable signs that the tigress had a 

 cub or cubs with her, were also naturally incensed at the 

 danger to which they had been exposed, the poor man had 

 rather a bad time of it on the whole. However, the 

 " bukshish " I gave him, and them which was in pro- 

 portion to the joy I felt at bagging the tiger, added to 

 the comparatively rare distinction I had achieved of 

 shooting it on foot soon restored peace, and after 

 making a long but fruitless search for the cubs, we 

 started for camp, jogging merrily along, with the tigress 

 slung on a stout bamboo and borne by about twenty men 

 marching behind us. 



Our way lay past the ridge where I had wounded the 

 " sambhur " on the previous day, and as we approached 

 the spot we saw a large crowd collected, and, on going up 

 to inquire, found that these men, induced by my offer of 

 a reward, had been tracking up the wounded stag all the 

 morning and about an hour previous to our arrival, had 

 found it lying dead inside a heavy bit of cover, with one 

 bullet-hole through the fleshy part of the chest and another 

 through the right buttock. 



Curiously enough, one of the hind legs had been eaten 

 completely away, evidently by the tigress, as the jungle 

 in which the body was found was not far from the one out 

 of which she was originally beaten. I secured the head, 

 which was a fair one, but the skin was too badly clawed and 

 bitten to be of any use, so I handed it over to the finders, 

 together with the carcass and promised reward. 



Continuing our homeward journey, we arrived in camp 

 at about 8 p.m., when we received quite an ovation from 

 the villagers around, and were soon surrounded by an 

 admiring and excited crowd of men, women, and children, 

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