48 DAYS AND NIGHTS OF SHIKAR 



of white through the bamboos ; a few seconds more 

 I waited with the rifle up to my shoulder, and a 

 tiger's head, the head, appeared directly in front 

 of me, from under some leaves at the very edge of 

 the forest line. He stopped, and the very first 

 thing he did was to raise his head and take a sweep- 

 ing look up into the trees facing him. Almost before 

 I saw him he saw me. He gave a snort and threw 

 round his head : as he did this I fired, and he turned 

 and galloped back into the beat, without a sound. 



I felt quite sure that I had missed him, and was 

 very sick about it : his head was the only part of 

 him that I saw, and a bullet in that must surely 

 stun him at least. The beaters all stopped, and 

 the men in trees near me shouted to them to tell 

 them what had happened, and of course they were 

 all safely up trees by then, from where they could 

 see ahead. Laximan and Krishna, when they saw 

 all was clear, came on cautiously, running from tree 

 to tree. Then came great hollaing and shouting 

 from them all, and the bang of a gun, and I pictured 

 how the unwounded tiger had broken back through 

 them and gone off. Some of the men still crept on, 

 but were quickly up trees when they heard an angry 

 snarl and a rush : the tiger charged, but only for a 

 very few yards. He had been lying about fifty yards 

 from me, very badly hit, and then I believe he fell 

 again. Laximan and Krishna, by some very circuit- 

 ous route, came round to the back of my tree. 

 They asked me if this was the tiger, the very big 

 one. I told them that I had only seen his head, 

 and I had missed that, and thought that he had 



