FOUR DAYS 117 



following it, a native behind us saw the tiger 

 slinking away in the jungle to the right. Very 

 little of the bullock had been eaten, and the 

 kill had evidently occurred in the early morning. 



We then went to the place where the other 

 bullock had been tied and found that it also 

 had been killed, and that the carcase had been 

 dragged to a considerable distance. Part of it 

 had been eaten, and the remainder was hidden in 

 a bed of high reeds in a dry ravine. The country 

 is sparsely populated, and beaters could not be 

 obtained in sufficient numbers, and there appeared 

 to be no water in the ravine. We decided, 

 therefore, to sit up over the two kills. There 

 was, as we subsequently discovered, a pool of 

 water in the ravine in which the carcase of the 

 bullock was lying ; and, if we had known this 

 at the time, we should probably have attempted 

 to beat the ravine with any men we could collect, 

 and might have frightened the tiger away. As 

 I have before said, the margin between success 

 and failure in big-game shooting is often a very 

 narrow one. 



To have any hope of a shot in the ravine, the 

 reeds hiding the carcase of the bullock had to be 

 beaten down, and the kill by the side of the 

 sandy nullah appeared to offer much the better 

 chance. It was probable also that the tiger 

 would return early to that kill, as very little of 

 the bullock had been eaten. Tweedie, therefore, 

 left camp to sit over the carcase of that bullock 

 at 3 p.m. in the afternoon, though the weather 

 was by this time quite hot, and there were still 

 four hours of daylight. The tiger had, however, 



