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THE MEERUT TENT CLUB 117 



memories would ever cling to us, its voices never cease 

 to call. 



The next morning A, 1st Life Guards, and I went 

 gooming (i.e. going quietly looking for game) to a 

 favourite spot of mine. I loved to go gooming 

 here, and wander in the dark before dawn in the 

 long grass between the jheel where the boar fed, 

 and the heavy jhow jungle where they lived in 

 the day. 



Come with me, reader, for an instant in spirit, 

 and we will stand on some little rise as the night 

 closes and look towards the dawn. Presently we 

 see with straining eyes some dim black objects far 

 away which only distinguish themselves by their 

 movement from the surrounding patches of grass. 

 A quiet walk on a course set to intercept their 

 path will soon reveal what they are. If cattle they 

 will go stolidly on, while there will be no mistaking 

 the rush of a hog-deer or the bound of a startled 

 buck. Pig we may always know, for when alarmed 

 they will halt suspicious every few yards, with head 

 aloft and ears cocked, peering for their unseen 

 enemy. 



The sounder have heard our horses' hoofs, and 

 they are doing this now. Presently they go on 

 again, and this is a signal for us to do the same. 

 Again they halt, and again we copy them. So the 

 moves continue, and each time we have gained a 

 little ground. At last the strain is more than 

 porcine nerves can stand ; suspicion becomes 

 certainty confounded, and the sounder break into a 

 canter. All concealment is now at an end, and we 

 single out the biggest pig in rear, who, refusing to be 

 shouldered away any longer, makes a line straight 



