THE FIRST PANTHER 



FOR the first few years that my husband and I 

 were in India I had most extraordinary bad 

 luck in every way in shooting. I sat up night 

 after night over kills to try and get a leopard. I 

 never saw or heard one. I went out with parties 

 tiger-beating, under really favourable circumstances, 

 the beat sometimes arranged by an Indian prince, 

 sometimes by a sahib, and I was generally given the 

 most likely place. But though I heard an occasional 

 bang to right or left, nothing ever came my way. I 

 was beginning to grow rather despondent about it. 

 There were several thieving panthers at Mount 

 Abu. At that time we were taking care of a little 

 brown spaniel, Flirt, for a friend. One night when 

 we were at dinner she ran round to the back of our 

 quarters and stood in the veranda where the light 

 from the cookhouse fell on her. Servants were 

 going backwards and forwards with dinner and the 

 butler was bringing something from the cookhouse 

 when he saw a panther spring into the veranda, 

 snap up poor little Flirt and go off with her. I tied 

 up a goat outside and sat hidden in the veranda 

 night after night, as long as the moon endured; 

 but the panther was too wary for me. 



