HUNTING WITH DOGS. 157 



he would go for his own private pathway, taking 

 me as a mere obstruction en route, as I never for u 

 moment doubted but that he was the beast the 

 dogs had roused. As I stood expectant, a lovely 

 wild cat, with a fine tawny skin, marked almost as 

 clearly as a tiger's, stole snakelike across the open- 

 ing, utterly unheeding me, and disappeared in the 

 brake beyond. Expecting the bear in another 

 minute I let the cat go, and regretted it directly 

 after, for with a regular burst of hounds' music 

 our pack dashed into the open, mad after their cat, 

 and went raging on, taking no notice of the larger 

 game close by. We searched afterwards, and found 

 that a bear had really been there, and had stolen off 

 by another of the hidden ' trapinkas '(game tracks) 

 with which the whole brake was warrened. The 

 dogs treed the cat, and we spent our luncheon hour 

 in smoking her out. 



The other occasion on which I got too close to 

 big game that day was in a rhododendron brake, 

 when our dogs, having bayed something on the 

 other side of the hill, I was hurriedly forcing my 

 way to them, when I became aware of sniffings and 

 tramplings to the right of me and to the left of me, 

 and plunging wildly on, nearly ran into something 

 else advancing. Had the rhododendron clump not 

 been exceptionally high (higher far than my 

 head), I could have seen my game and had capital 

 sport ; as it was, I was kept fumbling about in 



