ROUGHING IT IN SOUTHERN INDIA 243 



end the better, for one man-eater to a district was one too 

 many. Still, it was passing strange, unless a case of toujours 

 perdrix, that none of the usual stories as to this or that per- 

 son being missing came in. A few head of cattle, goats, etc., 

 disappeared, but these were losses to which everybody was 

 used ; besides, such prey was not in this tiger's line. Pos- 

 sibly he had betaken himself to some far distant part of 

 the country where the people would not be so much on their 

 guard against him, a sort of pulse he knew very well how 

 to test ; or, better still, he might be dead. So it went on 

 for quite two months, with complete dearth of news, and 

 nothing done as far as the man-eater was concerned, and 

 perhaps as a consequence vigilance was unconsciously re- 

 laxed. Nevertheless, though nobody guessed it, things were 

 getting into train. 



One afternoon, about four o'clock, F. and a peon, carrying 

 a shot-gun apiece, went out to shoot pea-fowl, which were 

 then coming daily in flocks to feed upon the ripening millet, 

 a grain these birds are very fond of, and of which there was 

 a field close to our camp. Beyond the field was a belt of 

 forest, on the edge of which stood a number of charcoal- 

 burners' huts, disused and ruinous, with the millet and high 

 grass growing up close all round them. Into one of these 

 F. and the peon went to hide and wait in silence for the birds 

 and for their chatter to begin, there being plenty of peep- 

 holes in the cracked mud walls through which they could 

 watch unseen. They had not been waiting a quarter of an 

 hour before they distinctly heard a low sound of purring 

 close by, on the side of the hut farthest from the doorway. 

 It was recognised simultaneously by both ; for when F. 

 turned to the peon he saw him crouching in a corner, his 

 face livid and his nerve completely gone, as he muttered, 

 ' Bagh, Sahib. Bagh ! ' (' Tiger, master. Tiger ! ') Tiger it 

 was, and both instinctively knew that it was the tiger ; no 

 other would have crept after them to stop alongside and let 



