PANTHERS. 55 



One evening, on the return from an unsuccessful day's 

 beating for a tiger, we had a short beat for a cheetah, which 

 had been seen to enter some rocks. It was driven out 

 towards Manley, who fired and wounded it in a leg. It 

 then came on, rather wide to my left, at the other side of a 

 ridge in front, which concealed it from view. The shikaries 

 shouted " Eun forward and fire." I accordingly ran up the 

 rising ground, and on arriving at the top saw him standing 

 under a tree close to me, and, throwing up my rifle, fired as 

 he bounded away. He was hard hit, for he roared for quite 

 half a minute in a thick clump of bushes close by, in which 

 it was impossible to see him. My companions now came 

 up, and after a short search were for going home, but we 

 had one more look round, and soon found plenty of blood, 

 which we followed up for some distance, and tracked him 

 into a cave, where we could see his tail appearing from 

 under a rock at the further end of a natural pit or arena, 

 some ten yards square, formed by boulders which sloped 

 steeply down. We decided to stir him up with a long pole, 

 so sending Baliyah round for this purpose, under the pro- 

 tection of Manley 's rifle, Poulton and I took up positions 

 at each side of the arena. We were all suffering from the 

 effects of the sun, which had been terribly hot all day, but 

 the fun kept us going, for at intervals the stirring-up 

 process provoked charges into the arena, which were always 

 stopped by Poulton or me, by blazing into the brute's face, 

 although, as a matter of fact, we never hit him. It was 

 dark now, so a fire was lighted behind his stronghold, but 

 he still held out, charging at intervals. At length I was 

 let down into the pit by ropes, under cover of Poulton and 

 Manley's rifles, and soon saw my friend pointing me, and 

 brained him by the light of the fire. During a shooting 

 trip in Western Mysore, with the late Captain Patterson, 



