232 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA 



into so narrow a place to beat him out with an elephant ; 

 and after much deliberation we decided to leave a pad 

 elephant at the head of the ravine, and post the people 

 we had with us on the trees round about to mark, while I 

 went down to the other end and quietly stalked along the 

 top bank on the chance of finding him asleep below. There 

 never was such a beautiful retreat for a tiger, I think. In 

 many places I could not see through the dense shade at 

 the bottom, and several times had to fling down stones to 

 assure myself whether some indistinct flickering object 

 were the tiger or not. I was proceeding quietly along, 

 probing the ravine in this fashion, when the pad elephant 

 we had left at the further end gave one of those tremendous 

 screams that an untrained elephant sometimes emits when 

 suddenly put in pain. She had stumbled over a stone 

 when swinging about in their impatient fashion. There 

 was little chance of flnding the tiger undisturbed after this, 

 and I had only to stand and watch for a chance of his com- 

 ing down the ravine or being seen by the scouts on the 

 trees. The first intimation I had of his presence was from 

 a couple of peafowl that scuttled out of a little ravine on 

 the opposite side ; and then I saw the tiger picking his way 

 stealthily up the face of a precipitous bank, where I could 

 hardly think a goat would have found footing. He was 

 about a hundred and fifty yards from my rifle; and the 

 first bullet only knocked some earth from the bank below 

 him. When I fired the other he was just topping the bank, 

 and clung for a second as if he would have come over back- 

 wards, but by an efiort recovered himself and disappeared 

 over the top. Running to a higher piece of ground I saw 

 him trotting sullenly across the burnt plain, and looming 

 as large to the eye as a buU buffalo. He certainly looked 

 a very mighty beast ; but he was a craven at heart, or he 

 would never have left such a stronghold to face the fearful 

 waterless, burnt-up country he did. I lost no time in get- 

 ting round the head of the ravine and giving chase on the 

 elephant. His tracks in the ashes of the burnt grass were 

 clear enough, and we followed him for about two miles, 

 sighting him on ahead every now and then, till he disap- 

 peared in a little ravine, and we lost the track in its bare 



