ANOTHER VICTIM. 297 



herdsmen were not certain that the tiger had not secured something in his 

 rush, we went in force to look through the cover. We only found foot- 

 prints, however, and knew they were not those of the man-eater, but of a 

 large male who was a well-known cattle-killer about the place. We shortly 

 heard a spotted-deer bark over the saddle of the hill to our left ; the tiger 

 had moved off in that direction upon his discomfiture. We saw nothing 

 more of him that day, or of the man-eater, and I returned to camp by 

 moonlight. It was so cold that I was glad of an overcoat. A good camp 

 Christmas dinner was awaiting me ; and had I only been lucky enough to 

 bag the man-eater, I should have been able to enter this amongst my red- 

 letter days. 



After this nothing was heard of the tigress for a week, when the trackers 

 and I were going to look after some wild elephants, and at the ford in the 

 river below the Koombappan temple found a tiger's pugs that were immedi- 

 ately pronounced to be hers. I sent back two men on my riding-elephant 

 to warn the people of Morlay that the tigress was in our jungles, a^ her 

 usual hunting-grounds were to the east of the river, and the people on our 

 side were liable to be off their guard. We tried to foUow her, but she had 

 ■crossed open dry country, in which tracking was impossible, and we had to 

 give her up. During the day I made arrangements for hunting her syste- 

 matically next day should she still be in our jungles. 



Whilst at dinner that evening, I heard voices and saw torches hurriedly 

 approaching my tent, and could distinguish the words " naie, " and " nurri " 

 ("dog" and "jackal") pronounced excitedly. The Canarese people fre- 

 quently speak of a tiger by these names, partly in assumed contempt, 

 partly from superstitious fear. The word " hooli " (tiger) is not often used 

 amongst jungle -men, in the same way that, from dread, natives usually 

 refer to cholera by the general terms of roga or jdrdya (sickness). The 

 people were from HurdenhuUy, a village a mile and a half away, and had 

 come to tell me that their cattle had galloped back in confusion into the 

 village at dusk, without their herdsman. Only one man had been with 

 them that day, as there was some festival in the village. We suspected he 

 had fallen a victim to the tigress, but it was useless to attempt a search 

 that night. The cattle had been two or three miles into the jungles, and 

 we had no indications where to look for the unfortunate herdsman, who was, 

 moreover, probably now half devoured. So ordering some rice for the men, 

 I sent them to Morlay to tell the trackers, and to sleep there and return 

 with them in the morning. 



At dawn we started on the back-trail of the cattle from HurdenhuUy 

 ^till we found the point where they had begun to gallop, just below the em- 



