98 TIGERS. 



cleared away, revealed a striped mass writhing and tearing 

 up the ground, during which performance I missed hand- 

 somely with the left barrel, and the tiger, retiring slowly 

 up the slope, soon disappeared in the bushes, while I 

 shouted to the beaters to climb the trees. Descending 

 from my tree, I went over to the gun on the left an old 

 hand at the game and asked him to cover me with his 

 rifle, while I pugged up the tiger, assuring him it was 

 probably dead. He replied, " Not a step shall I stir out of 

 this tree until something is known about the tiger." After 

 some interval all the guns came up, and wisely declined 

 to follow the wounded brute into heavy jungle where- 

 upon, like the headstrong young fool that I was, I 

 proceeded to do so alone, and had gone a few yards on the 

 track, when Edward Hall pluckily came forward, and 

 volunteered to help me. The tracks were plain enough, 

 being marked by much blood, and in several places the 

 claws had been driven into the ground with force, sure 

 sign of a severe wound. 



It was ticklish work, owing to the dense jungle, and the 

 dogs would not stir from our heels, although generally 

 very game. At length they went forward a few yards 

 every hair bristling over the slope, some twenty yards 

 ahead, but had hardly disappeared, when back they came 

 all of a heap, and barking in a terrible state of mind. 

 Some four or five natives had followed us, and this was 

 the signal for a general stampede, most laughable only for 

 the dangerous state of affairs. Everybody thought the 

 tiger was on us ; the natives were up the trees in a 

 twinkling ; we who were in front jumped behind the 

 trunk of a large forest tree within a yard of us, remaining 

 at the " ready " for fully half a minute, but the foe did not 

 appear. With much difficulty I then ascended an adja- 



