THE HIGHER NARBADA. 327 



have known an indifferent shot kill six bucks here in a 



morning. 



There was some excitement in the chance of stumbling 

 on a tiger in the cool thickets of green cover by the river, or, 

 like the sportsman, stalking the spotted deer. I was following 

 a wounded buck once, when I thus almost trod upon a tiger 

 doing the very same thing. It was in the dusk of the evening, 

 when I saw him about twenty paces ahead of me, roading up 

 the bloody trail like a retriever on a winged pheasant. He 

 was passing over a low ridge between two ravines, and I was 

 below him a situation awkward for a foot-encounter with 

 any dangerous animal. I, therefore, waited till he disappeared 

 on the other side, and then running softly up, peered down 

 from behind a clump of bamboos. Presently I saw the 

 wounded buck and two does start out of some cover beyond 

 the further ravine, and then a motion of the tiger, who had 

 been standing a little below them, as he quickly crouched out 

 of their sight, revealed him to me. I sat down, and took a 

 steady shot at his shoulder at about seventy yards. He rolled 

 back into the nald, above which I was standing, and, after a 

 good deal of growling and struggling among the leaves, all 

 w r as still. It would have been folly to go down to him in 

 such uncertain light, so I returned to the boat, going back 

 next morning with an elephant to see the result. It was just 

 as well I had not ventured down in the dark the night before ; 

 for, after lying some time where he fell, and leaving a great 

 pool of blood .on the ground, he had afterwards recovered 

 himself, and gone slowly and painfully off towards the river. 

 We followed up the track, and about three hundred yards 

 further down found him, by the chattering of birds, lying stiff 

 and stark under a bush. He had never reached the water he 

 sought. 



