234 ROUGHING IT IN SOUTHERN INDIA 



tiffin basket be forgotten. They would, perhaps, travel a 

 couple of days in this way. Sometimes a dog or two would 

 be with them — not always ; it depended on the sort of 

 cover there might be and the ground to be traversed. We 

 had eight spaniels, who were the smartest little dogs pos- 

 sible for tiger ; they would so bewilder him by their im- 

 pudent barking, leaping and snapping at his heels, that he 

 did not know what to be at or which to attack, as there 

 seemed to be no beginning or end to them. They knew, to 

 an inch, how near they might venture to the death-dealing 

 paw, a touch from which would have laid low any heedless 

 one. That happened once. A very daring dog did get a 

 blow on the hind leg, which rolled her over, but she was 

 pluckily snatched up by a beater and borne away into 

 camp, where the smashed leg was set. It mended in six 

 joints, so was never of much use to her afterwards, as she 

 could not stand on it, and trailed it along, though without 

 pain. Her tiger days were, of course, over. She was none 

 the less beloved for that ! 



On reaching the neighbourhood of the tiger's reputed lie- 

 up, the cart would be left with the syce that the tracking 

 might be done very warily on foot. Sometimes the tiger 

 would be found at a moment when he was not being searched 

 for, as once when F. and his friend were beetle-hunting. 

 Fortunately the Mussulman peon with them, not so keen on 

 beetles, had kept a lookout ; he stopped dead, and touched 

 them silently, for there, barring their path, in the shade of 

 a fallen tree trunk, lay a tiger, full stretched and sound 

 asleep, taking his noonday siesta. 



To waken him the peon flung his slipper right in his face. 

 The insult roused him, and he got on his feet, yawning and 

 looking round to see whence the disturbance arose. The 

 very instant his eyes fell on the three men and the rifles 

 pointing at him his temper rose. He gathered himself to- 

 gether, and with an earth-shaking roar made his charge, 



