298 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTKAL INDIA. 



tread had partly obliterated it ; but further on where we had 

 not yet gone it was found 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 look-out. The Ldlld in- 

 deed proposed that he should go a little ahead as a bait for the 

 tiger, while I covered him from the elephant with a rifle ! But 

 he wound up by expressing a doubt whether his skinny corpora- 

 tion 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 neigh- 

 bourhood just then. About a mile from the camp the track 

 turned off into the deep nala" that bordered the road. It was 

 now almost dark, so we went on to the camp, and fortified it 

 by posting the three elephants on different sides, and lighting 

 roaring fires between. Once in the night an elephant started 

 out of its deep sleep and trumpeted shrilly ; but in the morn- 

 ing we could find no tracks of the tiger having come near us. 

 I went out early next morning to beat up the nala" ; for a man- 

 eater is not like common tigers, and must be sought for morn- 

 ing, noon, and night. But I found no tracks, save in the one 

 place where he had crossed the nadd the evening before, and 

 gone off into thick jungle. 



On my return to camp, just as I was sitting down to break- 

 fast, some Banjaras from a place called Dekna about a mile 

 and a half from camp came running in to say that one of their 

 companions had been taken out of the middle of their drove of 



