The herald., 1897-11-15

Remember it? What a question:! It's
ten years gone. and more, yet wake in
the night with the cold sweat pouring
from me and the echo of that last awful
cry ringing in my ears. Forget it? ]
wish to God that could, but-well. this
Is the story. We were stationed at Mas
sirabad. the hottest and slowest hole in
the whole Indian Empire. The only
thing to break the awful monotony was
hunting, and after two years there was
naturally something of an expert. Game
outside round the Ajmere hills, was pret-
ty thck-that is, deer, neilghai and such
like-while we'll up Chandi way there
were lots of tigers to be had for the
potting.
Now. when one of the officers goes off
a-hunting lie generally picks on one of
us "Tommies" who knows the ropes
and takes us along. As there's general
ly tidy good pickings for Tommy, the
Job is well liked; so when young Simp-
son--our latest sub.-askcd me TO go
along and show him around, why,
naturally jumps at it, and packs my kit
before l knew where we were bound.
When l heard no other place than
rhandi Jungle was to be our stamping
ground l kind of squirmed little,
cause I'd been there before, and knew
the particular kind of hell it was. It's
full of tigers, and they're always hun
gry Why, when the locomotive is
plugging up the hill at night the stokers
have TO throw open the fire box door
and let out the light so as to scare the
brutes off with the glare on the inside
Of that little patch of jungle; and half
q fippn1pn have been
clawed off the tender by the brutes as
the engine grunted past. The hill is so
steep there that you can't make more
than twelve miles an hour with those
old rattietrap locomotives, anyway.
OF course 1 wasn't frightened; but
taking beginner out to place like that
isn't fun. There's no telling what fell
low'n do when stacked up against big
game for the first time; the finest shots
In the world will go to pieces at their
first sniff of a tiger or hathi-not that
elephants are particularly dangerous
but when your finest pigeon and target
shots tremble so they can't hit a deer
ut fifty yards, it's no joke to take a be-
ginner up in the woods at Chandi. l
tried to hold him, but he wouldn't hear
of it; told me as how he had promised
skin to young lady back home for her
birthday, and a skin he was going TO
have. So we started.
We took the night express and dropped
off early in the morning at Chandi viii
lage, where got the stuff for our camp,
a bundle of bamboos, some stout cord
and q young kid for bait. We then struck
across country, keeping well in the
open, for the Chandi river, little half
dried-up stream that quenches the
thirst of more tigers in a week thai n all
the other rivers in month. We crossed
this stream about in the afternoon |
and on the edge of the jungle 1 found
young banyan tree, up which
scrambled with the help of the youngster
and in a short time had hacked Il space
clear to fix my bamboos, which I nailed
and lashed into a kind of platform
strong and roomy enough to hold US both
comfortably. Then l slipped down by
q knotted rope which was to serve lis as
ladder.
Next we drove q stake deep down in
the bank of the stream, and tied the kid
to it, scratching its hind leg with a
knife so it would bleat and. having
chucked our grub, blaH4iets-a4fd- rifles
up, we Skinned up the rdpa Ourselves
and made everything comfortable. Then
began to breathe a little easier: for it |