130ASTIXG OF TIIE NATIVE?. 37 



attempted to enlist the wonder of a few of 

 the group in describing the animal's movements, 

 especially when he reared out of the water. A 

 fourth had been most advanced when he first 

 broke. 



But it would be endless to enumerate what each 

 had done. Indeed, speaking, as they mostly did, all 

 at once, whether with listeners or not, it would have 

 required an ear of no common power to separate 

 one vaunt from another. The only one among 

 them, who really seemed to have an audience, was 

 the hero of the tree, as he narrated, with great 

 volubility, and many repetitions, a very exaggerated 

 history of his danger and his escape. 



The professional shikarees, however, the men on 

 whom the real business devolved, and who were 

 capable of most plucky deeds, took the matter 

 much more quietly. They discussed it in its various 

 bearings, and especially extolled the fine shooting 

 displayed when the tigress was stopped in the pas- 

 sage of the river. Pointing to the different bullet- 

 holes, too, they tried to account for each ; where 

 and at what period of the fray it was made, and by 

 whom. 



The better to consider these momentous questions, 

 while the Sahibs rested under a tree and produced their 

 brandy-flasks and a cool chogul of water, the shika- 



