SOME BEARS IN SATARA in 



another man up a small tree waved his black blanket, 

 which for a second I thought was the aswol. Esuf, 

 with bare feet, and I, in cotton soles, crept along, 

 up to our knees in long thick grass and overgrown 

 weeds, and saw the bear facing us at a short distance, 

 and I got him without trouble. I only mention all 

 this because of the sequel. As we were going home, 

 Esuf said I was wearing a ring on my finger as we 

 went out and it was now gone. The men looked 

 in the place I breakfasted as we passed, but it was 

 not there. Esuf said that I must have flung it off 

 as I threw away the empty cartridge cases, which 

 I did in a hurry, to load up again quickly in case the 

 bear might have life enough to come for us. One 

 or two of the men went back to look, but it seemed 

 a hopeless place in which to find such a small thing 

 as a ring, in all that long grass and tangle, that I 

 then thought no more about the matter, except that 

 I said there would be some rupees for any one who 

 found it. 



Next morning the whole village was sitting round 

 doing nothing but watch the skinning operations, 

 when I happened to remember the ring, and said 

 the men that were idle might as well look for it as sit 

 there. Nobody stirred; and as the idea of rupees 

 generally moves them they evidently thought there 

 was no chance of finding it. However, at last the 

 chaprassi took some men off with him to make a 

 search and they came back with the ring. They 

 had looked about in the grass near the spot where 

 the bear was shot and were giving it up as a bad 

 job, when one man happened to turn over a large 



