THE LUCKY GRIFFIN. 49 



end of the beat another tiger came past his tree, giving him 

 a broadside shot as it went by he felt pretty sure he had hit 

 that also — no other shots were fired. When the beat was 

 over, the old hands came up to him with, " Well, youngster, 

 what have you been doing ? we heard a lot of shots." The 

 youngster quietly replied, "Oh, I have been rather lucky; there 

 is a tiger and a bear down there, and I think you will find 

 another tiger beyond ; " and sure enough there was the other 

 tiger lying dead. One can imagine their surprise, not to 

 mention other feelings, at the Griffin's bag on his first day's 

 tiger shooting! Alas ! Dame Fortune did not smile upon us 

 as she did on him ; we went to the most likely places we could 

 hear of, and posted bullocks night after night, but we only 

 succeeded in getting one " kill." Bad luck still clung to us, for 

 after posting us, as the men were leaving, they disturbed the 

 tiger, who with an angry roar dashed into the jungle in front 

 of us, and as he stood at about sixty yards from my tree, I 

 had a splendid sight of the magnificent brute, but I would 

 not fire, because he was right in the line of the beaters, and I 

 was in hopes they would drive him nearer. However, after 

 standing for about half a minute he moved into the thick 

 jungle ; soon afterwards the beaters commenced shouting, and 

 I saw him stealing away to my left about a hundred yards 

 distant, in a direction quite away from the beat, and from the 

 trees where we were posted. I could not resist giving him 

 a shot, though there was an uncertainty at that distance of 

 bagging him, and a danger to the beaters if he was only 

 wounded. 1 fancied I had hit, for he gave two roars as if in 

 pain and dashed on ; I afterwards saw the marks where he 

 had struck his claws into the ground when I fired, but we 

 soon lost his track. We had another beat on the chance 



4 



