250 Wild Beasts 



mer day, and the same by which we had come out in the 

 morning, when one of the men who was walking behind 

 the elephant started and called a halt. He had seen the 

 footprint of a tiger. The elephant's tread had partly 

 obliterated it, but further on where we had not yet gone it 

 was plain enough, the great square pug of the man-eater 

 we had been looking for all day ! He was on before us, 

 and must have passed since we came out in the morning, 

 for his track had covered that of the elephants as they 

 came. It was too late to hope to find him that evening, 

 and we could only proceed slowly along on the track, which 

 held to the pathway, keeping a bright lookout. The Lalla 

 [Forsyth's famous tiger-hunting shikari] indeed proposed 

 that he should go on a little ahead as a bait for the tiger, 

 while I covered him from the elephant with my rifle. But 

 he wound up by expressing a doubt whether his skinny 

 corporation would be a sufficient attraction, and suggested 

 that a plump young policeman, who had taken advantage 

 of our protection to make his official visit to the scene of 

 the last kill, should be substituted whereat there was a 

 general but not very hearty grin. The subject was too 

 sore a one in that neighborhood just then. About a mile 

 from the camp the track turned off into a deep nala that 

 bordered the road. It was now almost dark, so we went 

 on to camp, and fortified it by posting the three elephants 

 on different sides, and lighting roaring fires between. 

 Once during the night an elephant started out of its deep 

 sleep and trumpeted shrilly, but in the morning we could 

 find no tracks of the tiger near us. I went out early next 

 morning to beat up the nala, for a man-eater is not like 



