252 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA 



for the tiger, while I covered Mm from the elephant with a 

 rifle ! But he wound up by expressing a doubt whether 

 his skinny corporation would be a sufl&cient attraction, 

 and suggested that a plump young policeman, who had 

 taken advantage of our protection to make his official visit 

 to the scene of the last kill, should be substituted, whereat 

 there was a general but not very hearty grin. The subject 

 was too sore a one in that neighbourhood just then. About 

 a mile from the camp the track turned ofi into the deep 

 nala that bordered the road. It was now almost dark, 

 so we went on to the camp, and fortified it by posting the 

 three elephants on different sides, and hghting roaring 

 fires between. Once in the night an elephant started out 

 of its deep sleep and trumpeted shriUy, but in the morning 

 we could fimd no tracks of the tiger having come near us. 

 I went out early next morning to beat up the nala ; for a 

 man-eater is not like common tigers, and must be sought 

 for morning, noon, and night. But I found no tracks, 

 save in the one place where we had crossed the nala the 

 evening before, and gone off into thick jungle. 



On my return to camp, just as I was sitting down to 

 breakfast, some Banjaras from a place called Dekna — 

 about a mile and a half from camp — came running in to 

 say that one of their companions had been taken out of 

 the middle of their drove of bullocks by the tiger, just 

 as they were starting from their night's encampment. 

 The elephant had not been unharnessed, and, securing 

 some food and a bottle of claret, I was not two minutes 

 in getting under way again. The edge of a low savanna, 

 covered with long grass and intersected by a nala, was 

 the scene of this last assassination; and a broad trail of 

 crushed-down grass showed where the body had been 

 dragged down towards the nala. No tracking was re- 

 quired; it was horribly plain. The trail did not lead 

 quite into the nala, which had steep sides, but turned 

 and went alongside of it into some very long grass reaching 

 nearly up to the howdah. Here Sarjii Parshad (a large 

 Government mukna I was then riding) kicked violently 

 at the ground and trumpeted, and immediately the long 

 grass began to wave ahead. We pushed on at full speed, 



