358 A CUNNING PANTHER. 



shot, but I rolled him over. He got up and rushed up the bank, but I 

 tumbled him over again into the ravine. He now cantered back, but I 

 caught my empty rifle between my knees and seized the spare one, and 

 just as he was getting out of sight I killed him with a lucky shot in 

 the ear. 



Having laid out our game in the shade, I sent Subba to inquire of the 

 markers along the other boundary-hedge of the garden if they had seen 

 anything. After some time he came back to say that every man along the 

 line reported that one panther, some said two, had passed him, and that 

 the old fellow in the tree in the aloe-clump signalled that there was some- 

 thing hiding near its foot. I plumed myseK greatly on my foresight in having 

 stationed this marker in his present post. The panther (for such it was) had, 

 with the cunning common to its class, left the garden at the disturbance we 

 made over the leopards, and had secreted itself in this unpretentious spot, hop- 

 ing, no doubt, that we should confine our search to its regular haunts. The 

 idea was a good one, but unfortunately for it, not quite novel ; I had been 

 played the trick before, successfully on that occasion, and had not forgotten 

 the circumstance. The day was getting hot, but Subba's information was 

 as refreshing as ice ! I sent the men to the tank to get a drink of water, 

 and we then set out without a word, as the place where the panther lay 

 hidden was so small that the slightest alarm might have made it leave it. 

 The old fellow in the tree had taken the precaution of climbing to the top- 

 most branch (panthers have been known to pull sportsmen out of trees ; a 

 friend of mine shot one when in a tree which it had ascended to a height 

 of thirty feet from the ground on being mobbed in a garden by some 

 villagers), and he now directed us by silently pointing to the exact spot in 

 the thicket where the hiding beast lay. The men formed up on the far side 

 of the thicket without a sound, whilst I took post on foot close to the south 

 hedge of the garden. I placed my spare rifle on full-cock against a tree 

 ready to hand. Between the aloe-thicket and my post was a stretch of the 

 greenest turf, as, though it was then the end of the hot weather in Mysore, 

 the ground here was damp and marshy. The panther would have to cross 

 this open space, close past me and in full view, in returning to the garden. 

 The men awaited my signal with upraised clubs, and a fiendish howl 

 ready, no doubt, on each tongue. A little in advance of them stood Subba, 

 with a lighted stick in one hand and a rocket in the other, waiting for 

 orders to eject the animal. I raised my hand. The lighted stick was 

 applied to the rocket, which fizzed slowly ; when properly agoing it was 

 thrown into the very spot where the beast lay, and its terrors supplemented 

 by the said pent-up yells of the beaters. The panther came out like a 



