270 ROUGHING IT IN SOUTHERN INDIA 



beyond for some little distance, till the ground became too 

 stony to reveal anything. There was no knowing how that 

 chase ended, except that a stag being even fleeter than a 

 tiger, and taking risky leaps where the other would 

 hesitate, the chances were at least equal, if not quite in 

 his favour. 



Tigers were pretty plentiful in this neighbourhood — they 

 generally are in a good game country — and their coats in 

 the pink of condition, at the expense of that same game. 

 One evening F. walked into camp followed by the beaters 

 carrying two tigers slung to their poles as the day's ' bag,' 

 and though satisfied not to have lost his time, his pleasure 

 was not nearly so great as was his disappointment on another 

 day, when two tigers gave him the slip, getting clean away, 

 though he had come up with them close enough to be sure 

 there were two by their diverse markings, the face of one — 

 evidently an old fellow — being greyish, while the other was 

 in his prime. That they were still to shoot afforded no 

 comfort ; the sting lay in the fact that both had got the 

 better of him. 



In an earlier chapter I mentioned that F. was at one 

 time engaged in catching ibex alive in this same Coimbatore 

 district, and it was, in fact, owing to the presence in camp 

 of these creatures, with their overpowering, goaty odour, 

 that we were nearly being sacrificed to a tiger's mistake. 

 That he really did only make a mistake F. felt sure. Still 

 it was one which, if not rectified in time, might have landed 

 us beyond further concern in the matter. 



The day's toil was over — for toil that ibex-snaring was — 

 and all was quiet, it being the hour before dinner. It was 

 getting dark, but hardly dark as yet, with enshrouding mists 

 rolling up and making camp snugness seem all the more 

 alluring. (We were in tents this time, it being a wandering 

 tour.) Although the people with us were so numerous, 

 the usually chattering crew were too much engrossed for 



