WILD LIFE ACROSS THE WORLD 



from accomplishing my main object, the photographing 

 of a tiger. I was greatly disappointed, but as there 

 was apparently little use in remaining there, I made up 

 my mind to return to civilisation. Then, as so often 

 happens, we began to find traces of the beast which 

 we had been seeking in vain. In a river-bed was the 

 carcass of a freshly-killed young bison, with pug-marks 

 of a tiger and a half-grown tiger-cub around it. A 

 little later on, but some four hundred yards from a 

 village, we again saw tiger spoor, and found the place 

 where the great cat had seized a bullock by the nose 

 and had dragged him, sliding along on all fours, for 

 about twelve yards. The pug- marks were wonder- 

 fully clear, and there was not the slightest difficulty 

 in following them up to the entrance of a kind of tunnel 

 leading into the dense jungle, up which the bullock's 

 carcass had been drawn. 



Scrambling down from the elephant, I drew my 

 revolver, and then began to crawl on hands and knees 

 up that tunnel. It was a nerve-racking undertaking, 

 one from which a more experienced Indian hunter 

 would probably have shrunk ; but I had had so many 

 disappointments over tigers that I could not let this 

 chance slip. The light was very dim, and all the 

 time I had the uncomfortable knowledge that the 

 tiger would be able to see me very clearly long before 

 I made him out. 



I had gone about fifteen or twenty yards, and was 



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