Killing a Man-Eater. 17 
Some years ago my friend, Mr. EH. H. Pringle, of the en- 
gineering department, was waited on by a deputation of villagers, 
with a request to kill a man-eating tigress, which had carried off 
five grown persons and a child of about ten years old. He re- 
paired to the village a few days afterwards, with his own syce, 
fully prepared for action, and learned that since their visit to 
him an old woman had disappeared, and was believed to have 
been taken by the tiger, as bloody and tattered portions of her 
clothing had been found in the jungle. He ordered the mechan, 
or platform, to be built in a tree, about thirty yards from an 
open glade, and just before dusk an old cow was securely 
tethered in the open space, and he mounted his perch to wait for 
the tiger. The spot, almost surrounded by thick cover, would 
give the tiger every opportunity of approaching without fear of 
detection, and much to the watcher’s satisfaction the cow 
bellowed at frequent intervals, bemoaning her captivity to her 
companions at no great distance in the village. Twilight passed, 
and the moon rose, sending its beams across the glade, and full 
on the open space where the old cow stood unconsciously calling 
her enemy to supper. Hour after hour passed without result, 
but the watcher had determined to keep at his post until day- 
light, and lose no chance of bagging the man-eater. 
Sitting motionless and attentive, with his large-bore double 
rifle nicely balanced on a fork of the tree, and levelled straight at 
the cow, the chances were against the escape of the tiger should 
it appear. But his syce, sitting behind him with the spare rifle, 
every now and then gave evidence by a snort of having passed 
into the land where tigers trouble only in dreams. More than 
once the fellow made so much noise, in spite of whispered threats 
of punishment on the morrow, that the tiger must have been 
alarmed had it passed near the tree. The night was getting old, 
and the moonlight passing away from the glade, when, suddenly, 
a tiger bounded noiselessly from cover, and crouched right in 
front of the cow. 
Then followed a scene which must, of necessity, lose in the 
telling—told, as it is, too, at secondhand. The tiger, in no hurry 
c 
