A GOOD DAY'S SPORT 193 



failed to hit with the first shot, I knew I had hit with the 

 second, yet to miss such an object a few yards off seemed to 

 me impossible. But again, had I hit him fairly where I 

 aimed, the tiger ought to have been as dead as a door- 

 nail. 



I approached very cautiously the place where " Stripes " 

 had disappeared ; it was a little lower down at a bend so I 

 could not see any of the deer I had slain. The bushes on 

 either side were sprinkled plentifully with blood, so telling the 

 orderly to stick close to me with the smooth-bore, which also 

 carried ball very fairly, I advanced at a snail's pace, keeping 

 my eyes about me. I would take a step, then pause to listen 

 for a sound, and to look well ahead and all round for the 

 slightest movement. The jungle was not high, but dense, and 

 to get along I had to push my way through the track made 

 by the tiger. Ticklish work, for these treacherous brutes can 

 hide where scarcely a hare could, and \\Qperdu until- you are close 

 up to them then a rush or a spring, and God be with the 

 hunter ! But in the excitement of a hot chase, men don't 

 pause to calculate the pros and cons, but do all they can to 

 slay and recover the quarry. 



After going along the right bank for about a mile, the 

 feline had descended back into the bed of the nullah by a 

 sloping path leading to a pool of water, made by animals 

 going there to drink. Now I was safer, as I could see 

 pretty well ahead and around me. The tiger had drunk, and 

 then gone on. I was afraid I should lose him, when I noticed 

 some frothy blood, and I knew he had been shot through the 

 lungs, and that the end could not be far off. I followed the 

 tracks up to close on 5 p.m., then I lost the trail. So telling 

 the orderly, a Sepoy of the Mahratta race, to look in one 

 direction, I circled about in another. In about ten minutes 

 the Sepoy shouted ; I hurried up and found him standing by 

 the carcase of a tigress stone dead, lying jammed between 

 two rocks. In her death struggle, panting for breath, she 

 must have sprung and fallen where discovered. There was 

 no time to be lost, the sun would soon set, and I only knew 

 the way back to the Zyat by the way we had come. 



We soon collected a quantity of grass and other debris and 



