BULLET AND SHOT 



After this, anxious if possible to show the parson 

 some sport, I purchased four donkeys with the 

 intention of tying them up in likely places as baits 

 for the panthers. They were tied out on one or 

 two nights with no further result than that one 

 of them was lost, or stolen, when duty rendered 

 it necessary for me to go out into the district and 

 to remain there for some time. When I returned, 

 it was only for a few hours, since I drove in twenty- 

 eight miles in the morning and wished to reach a 

 travellers' bungalow twenty - seven miles off in 

 another direction that same evening. 



My house was a corner one, situated at the 

 junction of four roads, and on one side was a 

 street often far too noisy to be pleasant beyond 

 which, in that direction, lay the thickly populated 

 native town. 



The compound was a diminutive one, surrounded 

 by a high wall, and to small silver oak trees therein 

 the donkeys were nightly tied. 



The panthers had been killing domestic animals 

 about the outskirts of the town, and one evening 

 an old English gentleman, walking along the road, 

 saw one of them leave the latter, and walk across 

 the little park in which the tennis-courts were 

 situated. 



On the night following the day on which I had, 

 as above described, returned to Mysore for a few 

 hours only, and had again left for camp, my wife 

 heard her mare neighing in the stable, and won- 

 dered why the animal did so. In the morning, 

 when the ayah (female servant) came with my 



i So 



