82 The Hunting Grounds 



as they were bounding through the long grass and 

 brushwood. 



I examined the pugs, and found them to be the 

 same as those that had crossed the trail of the 

 man-eater the day before, and which I had sup- 

 posed to have belonged to a tigress and her two 

 cubs. Several of the beaters saw the wounded tiger 

 linger after the others, and had marked it take re- 

 fuge in the small island caused by the dividing of the 

 nullah. 



It was a kind of bank, raised about three feet above 

 the bed of the water-course, and, perhaps, eighty 

 yards long, by thirty wide, being covered with grass 

 and reeds about five feet high, and so overgrown 

 with low bushes, and tangled underwood, that it 

 would have been impossible for the beaters to have 

 made their way through it. 



I posted the Doctor, W , and some of the gang, 



with fire-arms, so as to command a view on all sides, 

 cautioning each how to fire so as not to hit any of the rest, 

 and when all was ready Chineah struck a light with his 

 flint and steel, and standing to windward fired the high 

 grass, which was as dry as tinder from the long drought, 

 and blazed up, roaring and crackling, in an instant. 



I then took post by a hole in the bank, where the 

 grass bore traces of having been recently disturbed 

 and trodden down, it being, I thought, a likely place 

 for the tiger to break. 



