THE LUCKY GRIFFIN. 
49 
end of the beat another tiger came past his tree, giving him 
a broadside shot as it went by he felt pretty sure he had hit 
that also— no other shots were fired. When the beat was 
over, the old hands came up to him with. Well, youngster, 
what have you been doing ? we heard a lot of shots." The 
youngster quietly replied, '^Oh, I have been rather lucky ; there 
is a tiger and a bear down there, and I think you will find 
another tiger beyond ; " and sure enough there was the other 
tiger lying dead. One can imagine their surprise, not to 
mention other feelings, at the Griffin's bag on his first day's 
tiger shooting ! Alas ! Dame Fortune did not smile upon us 
as she did on him ; we went to the most likely places we could 
hear of, and posted bullocks night after night, but we only 
succeeded in getting one " kill." Bad luck still clung to us, for 
after posting us, as the men were leaving, they disturbed the 
tiger, who with an angry roar dashed into the jungle in front 
of us, and as he stood at about sixty yards from my tree, I 
had a splendid sight of the magnificent brute, but I would 
not fire, because he was right in the line of the beaters, and I 
was in hopes they would drive him nearer. However, after 
standing for about half a minute he moved into the thick 
jungle ; soon afterwards the beaters commenced shouting, and 
I saw him stealing away to my left about a hundred yards 
distant, in a direction quite away from the beat, and from the 
trees where we were posted, I could not resist giving him 
a shot, though there was an uncertainty at that distance of 
bagging him, and a danger to the beaters if he was only 
wounded. 1 fancied I had hit, for he gave two roars as if in 
pain and dashed on ; I afterwards saw the marks where he 
had struck his claws into the ground when 1 fired, but we 
soon lost his track. We had another beat on the chance 
4 
