34 THE FORESTS OF UPPER INDIA 



would certainly suspect a trap and not return any more. 

 Jussoo, carrying some eatables in a basket, went up the 

 path by the stream, making the peculiar call which 

 gualas always make to lead their cattle. The tree was 

 silently swarmed and rifles handed up, and Jussoo went 

 away quickly by another path, still calling to his cattle, 

 till his voice died away in the far distance. The day was 

 long and sultry, and the limbs wearied with the con- 

 strained attitude. Not a cough or a move could be 

 indulged in, nor yet tobacco if success was to be secured. 

 Luckily, for a wonder, the flies even were too sleepy and 

 overpowered by the heat to trouble much, though some 

 did buzz persistently about one's nose, and could not be 

 beaten off, as the movement of the hand would surely 

 betray one's whereabouts. Nothing but the hope of 

 securing the man-eater which had killed two or three 

 hundred human beings, and had evaded well-laid plans 

 already many times, and escaped from the snares of 

 the clever and plucky Gurkhas for three seasons, could 

 have induced a comfort-loving mortal to endure to the 

 end. Twice had he escaped when whole nights had been 

 spent on the watch for this terrible destroyer of families, 

 this scourge of mankind. Once he had come when the 

 moon was gone down, and the crunching of the bones 

 was the uncertain mark to fire at. Once, in the winter, 

 it had snowed all night, and in a tree it was cold. It was 

 not cold now, and patience was the only virtue to be 

 hung for. 



Well, patience was rewarded, for about three o'clock 

 in the afternoon, after sleep had nearly come unbidden, 

 with the risk of a dangerous fall (finger on trigger and 

 two full-cocked rifles balanced on shaky boughs), there 

 came to the ear faint, uncertain indications that some- 

 thing was on foot. About three o'clock is the time when 



