igo DAYS AND NIGHTS OF SHIKAR 



beat was a most important thing. The tiger was 

 doing great havoc among their cattle, if we did not 

 beat when we had our chance we might not have 

 another, and I quoted their own words about him 

 " The tiger is the Raja Sahib, and obeys no one's 

 orders/' Besides this, the wedding feast would 

 be greatly enhanced, looking at it from a money 

 point of view, by the baksheesh resulting if we got 

 our tiger, or the men's pay for beating in any case, 

 and the happy couple would not be asked to join, 

 they could stay behind. They saw my point and 

 we had the beat. 



There was a hill on my left, and the tiger who 

 was there tried to sneak away over it. The wedding 

 party made a glorious noise, enough to turn him. 

 He gave a loud angry roar and a rush, and passed 

 me at top speed among the trees, at some little 

 distance and I missed him ! 



1 1 sat up that night to try for the tiger. The calf 

 had been half eaten and dragged under some thick 

 bushes, where it would be impossible to see it at 

 night. I wanted to find a place for the kill fairly 

 near the spot the tiger had hidden it, where the 

 moonlight would fall on it, and where there was a 

 tree with sufficient leaves to hide me and enough 

 branches to tie the machan in. The calf was pulled 

 along from under the bushes for twenty yards or so, 

 down into a stony nullah, where it was roped firmly 

 to the stump of a tree, and the ropes camouflaged 

 with dry leaves and grass. I was not at all satisfied 

 with my place, it was too far from the kill and there 

 were too many branches in the way for night shoot- 



