158 TWO TEARS IN THE JUNGLE. 



When -we first saw him, he was walking from us, going across 

 the bed of the stream. Knowing precisely what I wanted to do, I 

 took a spare cartridge between my teeth, raised my rifle and 

 waited. He reached the other bank, sniffed it a moment, then 

 turned and paced slowly back. Just as he reached the middle of 

 the stream, he scented us, stopped short, raised his head and 

 looked in our direction with a suspicious, angry snarl. Now was 

 my time to fii-e. Taking a steady, careful aim at his left eye, I 

 blazed away, and without stopping to see the effect of my shot, 

 reloaded my rifle with all haste. I half expected to see the great 

 brute come bounding round that clump of bamboos and upon one 

 of us ; but I thought it might not be I he would attack, and before 

 he could kill one of my men I could send a bullet into his brain. 



Vera kept an eye upon him every moment, and when I was 

 again ready I asked him with my eyebrows, " Where is he ? " He 

 quickly nodded, "He's there still." I looked again, and sure 

 enough, he was in the same spot, but turning slowly around and 

 around, with his head held to one side, as if there was some- 

 thing- the matter with his left eye ! When he came around and 

 presented his neck fairly I fired again, aiming to hit his neck-bone. 

 At that shot he instantly dropped upon the sand. I quickly 

 shoved in a fresh cartridge, and with rifle at full cock and the tiger 

 carefully covered, we went toward him, slowly and respectfully. 

 We were not sure but that he would even then get up and come at 

 us. But he was done for, and lay there gasping, kicking, and 

 foaming at the mouth, and in three minutes more my first tiger lay 

 dead at our feet. He died without making a sound. 



To a hunter, the moment of triumph is when he first lays his 

 hand upon his game. What exquisite and indescribable pleasure 

 it is to handle the cruel teeth and knife-hke claws which were so 

 dangerous but one brief moment before ; to pull open the heavy 

 eyelid ; to examine the glazing eye which so lately glared fiercely and 

 fearlessly upon every foe ; to stroke the powerful hmbs and glossy 

 sides while they are still warm, and to handle the feet which made 

 the huge tracks that you have been following in doubt and danger. 



How shall I express the pride I felt at that moment ! Such a 

 feeling can come but once in a hunter's life, and when it does come 

 it makes up for oceans of ill-luck. The conditions were all ex- 

 actly right. I was almost alone and entirely unsupported, and had 

 not even one " proper " weapon for tiger-hunting. We met the tiger 

 fairly, on foot, and in iour minutes from the time we first saw him 



