HUNTING WITH THE KARENS 101 



rience, and the only tiger I saw in Siam. We were 

 in a very dense bamboo thicket and I was seated, 

 smoking, with my rifle standing against a nearby 

 bamboo clump. As I sat, a something about 

 twenty yards on my right moved, and looking 

 quickly, I just got a fleeting glimpse of a tiger 

 slinking silently, swiftly out of the bamboo into the 

 jungle. I jumped to my feet, but before I could 

 seize my rifle it had disappeared. I followed the 

 tracks as long as I could see them, but never got 

 another sight of the royal beast. 



After three days the arrival of the " buffalo 

 hunters " was the signal for a pow-wow that 

 lasted well into the night before Ram's tent. Such 

 incessant jabbering I have never heard, and every- 

 body in the neighborhood gathered to hear and to 

 take part in the conference. I fancy everyone 

 enjoyed it but me. To my repeated question of 

 Ram if the newcomers knew anything of buffalo, 

 the chief would as repeatedly reply they had .not 

 got to that yet. For most part of the time their 

 talk was the gossip of the jungle, usually of the 

 character commonly exploited in Ram's open 

 court. Thus half the night passed. Finally, how- 

 ever, it developed that these men, who had been 

 searched out at a neighboring settlement, and for 

 whom we had waited three days, had not hunted 

 buffalo, but knew another who had killed one! 



