i io SIR VICTOR BROOKE CHAP. 



anyway she never flinched to the shot, but for a 

 second or two stood coolly facing us. It was, I must 

 own, a very nervous minute. Had she charged she 

 must have killed one or both of us, but her heart failed 

 her. Whisking her long tail, she bounded grandly 

 over the roaring torrent and disappeared into the wood. 

 Not a sign of the pig was to be seen, so, it being too 

 dark to think of tracking, we reluctantly returned to 

 the hut, cogitating on the heavy work we will have to- 

 morrow one wounded tiger and two wounded boars. 

 Oh that I had Purdey ! 



I oth April. Off at the earliest dawn. We could not 

 find a sign of the boar. This is most singular ; how he 

 escaped after the awful mauling he got quite beats me ; 

 I can't understand it. Immediately found blood on the 

 tiger's track quantities of it leading straight up the 

 hill. It was the most ticklish piece of tracking by far 

 that I ever experienced. Had the wounded tiger been 

 anywhere near and alive, so steep was the hill, that to 

 stop a charge would have been hopeless. Expecting 

 to find her dead, we still kept the track. In one or 

 two places we found that she had lain down, and sticks 

 and twigs were saturated with her blood. At one 

 place the track led into such a thick place that we 

 described circles round it ; but, do all we could, we 

 could find no more blood. Thinking she was in this 

 tangled mass of jungle, we made B.'s second man climb 

 different trees and look in, but no sign of her ; nor did 

 we ever find her track farther, though we came back 

 after breakfast with several of the Todas to help, and 

 spent a long time looking for fresh blood. We were 

 just as unsuccessful with B.'s boar, never hitting off the 

 track. Utterly disgusted with this run of bad luck, I 

 turned into bed that night with the fixed determina- 

 tion that, come what might, I would account for the 



