The Tiger 229 



" I have already given one instance of an unwounded 

 tiger charging and nearly killing a beater, and I now pro- 

 pose to show how another was unprincipled enough to 

 break two of the three rules at the same time. 



"A few days after the events narrated in the preceding 

 chapter, I and the four others comprising our party were 

 duly posted across a wide nullah (dry watercourse). Gibbon 

 was told off for a tree growing on the top of the bank. The 

 fork into which he climbed must have been quite twelve 

 feet from the ground, so that as I sat in my bush in 

 the bed of the nullah he appeared almost in another 

 world. As soon as we were all settled the beat began. 

 Our band on this occasion was unusually good. It pro- 

 duced a loud and piercing discord. 



" Almost immediately was heard the sound as of a horse 

 galloping down the stony bed of the nullah. It was a 

 tigress charging at full speed. Like a flash of lightning 

 she had cleared all obstacles, and was in the first fork of 

 Gibbon's tree eight feet from the ground, and perpendic- 

 ular to it. Gibbon fired down upon her, and she fell to 

 the earth with her jaw broken, but instantly charged again 

 to the same spot, when another sportsman hit her with an 

 Express bullet in the back, making a fearful wound. 



"The pursuit on elephants now commenced. There 

 were three of them, and each had a line of his own to 

 investigate. One called Bahadur Guj was much the 

 stanchest, and knew what it was to be clawed. 



"Just as this elephant was passing a thick spot, the 

 wounded tigress sprang on his head. There was a brief 

 but exciting struggle. Bahadur Guj got his enemy down, 



