HUNTING ALONE 93 



when you ride in the bitter cold to the old tower 

 on the low hills and see the dawn rise, you thank 

 God for being alive. 



Gradually the scene unfolds itself. The vast 

 sea of yellow grass, interspersed with the white 

 feathers and reeds of the j heels lies before you. 

 Farther is the faint line of the sub-Himalayan 

 forests, and far, far beyond spreads the long horizon 

 of giant snowy mountains standing clear and sharp 

 as their peaks catch the light of the rising sun. 



It was here that my friend Mr. (now Major) 

 D. Forman, R.H.A., killed his tiger. I give the 

 true version, for there are many stories of this. 



Forman and I were subalterns in "H," R.H.A., 

 in camp here in 1899. My shikaries reported two 

 tigers in one of the j heels I have mentioned. 

 People laughed at me in Mess, for our shell were 

 daily going all over this Kadir. However, I tied 

 up, and getting no kill, we sat up one night, as usual, 

 over live buffaloes. 



Through the jheel, where we believed the 

 tigers to be, ran a little stream hedged in on either 

 side by swampy grass and narkul taller than a 

 man. Occasionally the stream opened to a little 

 clearing with a low sandy beach. In one of these 

 was Forman's pit roofed over with branches, grass, 

 and sand, for there were no trees. I was on the 

 low hills. 



There was a full moon, a hard frost on the ground. 

 One of those wonderful North Indian nights : 



When the air is clear as crystal, and the white stars fairly blaze 

 At midnight in the cold and frosty sky. 



In the full of the night the tiger made a rush and 

 killed. Forman had a small bore magazine rifle 

 and a revolver. He fired and partially paralysed 



