A RICKETY HAMMOCK 189 



ride through the jungle and we reached home about 

 midnight. 



On skinning the panther in the morning we found 

 some large splinters of bone in the foreleg; it had 

 been badly broken before by a bullet and was a 

 good deal twisted, and the muscle was bunchy 

 round the place. It was completely healed though 

 badly mended ; he appeared to walk quite sound on 

 it, however. 



A good many days passed without news of any 

 sort of a tiger, then one morning we saw the pugs of 

 one going very near one of the baits, and the next 

 day the calf was gone. I sent the shikari out to 

 two villages to collect coolies to beat. I have said 

 how difficult it was to get beaters here and how much 

 they disliked going through the jungles. The kotwal 

 at one village sent back word to say all the men were 

 going to the bazaar; at the other place, Kassundi, 

 some one had taken a wife, therefore he and all his 

 wedding guests could not come. I cantered over 

 to Kassundi, and found the bride and bridegroom 

 promenading in the village, dressed in bright yellow 

 clothes, and each had a square of some loose coloured 

 material over the head; one corner of each square 

 was knotted, tying them loosely together. I said 

 that I wanted beaters at once. They said that 

 they were busy getting married that day and the 

 next, and that they could not well come, and I 

 noticed several of the wedding party slipping away 

 to hide in their huts. Their excuse seemed to me 

 a very frivolous one, so I said how unreasonable it 

 was : they could get married any day, but a tiger 



