ROUGHING IT IN SOUTHERN INDIA 237 



which she could, be given but sparingly ; nor could she be 

 allowed any of her accustomed rice, that being too filling, 

 so she had to be content with the best meat jellies. She 

 would have recovered sooner than she did, only when almost 

 well, and not so rigidly watched, she managed to get at 

 something when the other dogs were feeding, and overate 

 herself, so that the stitches burst out, and the rent had to 

 be sewn up again. Things had quite righted themselves 

 internally then — so complaisant sometimes is Nature — but 

 outwardly all was now to do again, and the food-watch 

 had to be redoubled. However, in the end she recovered 

 completely, and lived to meet with the very same sort of 

 mishap again, though wild boars being her special business 

 (and pleasure) that was not so surprising, and this time she 

 made an even quicker recovery. 



Another day — also when after pig — F.'s cartridge got 

 fixed, that being the worst thing that can befall — at a crisis, 

 too. He was caught and pinned to a tree by his clothes, 

 and must have been ripped up himself next minute but 

 for the timely intervention of his shikar companion and 

 best-loved friend, who saved the situation by forcing his 

 huge hunting-knife down the boar's throat. The animal did 

 fall back at that, and received a bullet to finish. In the 

 flash of an instant it had been judged unwise to fire, with 

 F. and the boar so closely locked ; but the treacherous foot- 

 hold of slippery, trampled grass affording no purchase 

 made the knife stroke also hazardous, when the issue hung 

 on the turn of a wrist, steeled though it was by the know- 

 ledge that a swerve meant failure, and failure meant death, 

 or at best frightful hurts, to both men. 



The same friend was in a fix himself once when they were 

 out together from something going wrong with his rifle, 

 and the panther they were after was upon them, all three 

 struggling in a heap together, when F. managed to shove 

 his Express between its jaws and down the throat, and so 



