CHAPTER VI 



A WEEK OF DISASTER 



I SPENT the Christmas week of the year 1908 

 in the Sondhar Forest in the Baihar Tahsil of 

 the Balaghat district in the Central Provinces. 

 Mihtab Khan was with me and a peon named 

 Shama, and I had secured the services of a fairly 

 good shikari. Shama was a native of the Kangra 

 district, and had never seen dangerous game 

 until he entered my employment ; but he had the 

 makings of a splendid shikari. He had keen 

 sight and hearing, and also the docility and 

 trust in the Sahib which characterises the Dogra. 

 Some days passed very pleasantly in still-hunting, 

 and two good swamp-deer stags, one of which 

 was a ten-pointer, and also a fair sambur, 

 were bagged. Buffaloes had been tied out as 

 baits, but for some days we neither saw nor 

 heard anything of tigers. On the night of the 

 3O~3ist of December, however, there was a kill 

 by a tigress. The place was favourable, the kill 

 having occurred in a strip of jungle between the 

 Banjar River and a forest road, and a beat was 

 easily arranged. My machan was tied on the 

 further edge of a deep dry nullah, running into 

 the river at right angles, and the tigress, to escape 

 from the strip of jungle, had to cross this nullah. 



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