62 The Hunting Grounds 



under the shade of a large tamarind tree, in front 

 of the tannah, or police station. 



After the usual compliments and salaams, he 

 proceeded to tell us of the great devastation this 

 man-eater had caused in all the villages round 

 about, and he offered to give every assistance 

 in his power to enable us to find his haunts and 

 destroy him. 



Having arranged all about the beaters to be 

 collected from the neighbouring villages, and 

 ordered them to be ready to take the field before 

 dawn the following morning, we went out with a 

 party of villagers to a well, about a hundred and 

 fifty yards from the village, near which a woman 

 was said to have been carried off by the tiger the 

 day before, as she was drawing water in the even- 

 ing about dusk. 



I examined the place attentively, and although 

 the marks of the tiger's pugs were effaced near the 

 well from a flock of goats having passed by, yet 

 near a tamarind tree, some little distance off, they 

 were plainly visible, and even the marks of dried 

 blood and some long hair were left on the roots. 



I also noticed the place behind a bush, where 

 the herbage was pressed down, and the marks still 

 left in the dust showed that the cunning brute had 

 lain for some time on the look out, before he 

 seized his prey. 



