The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1897-12-08
A TIGER EPISODE. |
BY AQUnA KEMPSTER.
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.

n EMEMBER IT? What question!
n 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? l wish to God that
could, but-well, this is the story: We
were stationed at Nassirabad. the hot
test and slowest hole in the whole In
dian empire. The only thing to break
the awful monotony was hunting, and
after two years there l was naturally
something of an expert. Game, outside
round the Ajmere hills, was pretty
thick-this is, deer, neilghai and such
iike-while well up Chandi way there
were lots of tigers to be had for the
potting.
Now, when one of the officers goes
off a-hunting he generally picks on one
of us "Tommies" who knows the ropes
and takes us along. AS there's gem
orally tidy good picking for Tommy,
the job is well liked; so when young
Simpson-our latest sub.-asked me to
go along and show him around, why, l
naturally jumps at it and packs my kit
before l knew where we were bound.
When heard no other place than Chan
di jungle was to be our stamping
ground l kind of squirmed little,
cause I'd been there before and knew
the particular kind of place it was. It's
full OF tigers, and they're always hum
cry. 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 outside of that little patch of jungle,
and half dozen Parsee firemen 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 IL miles an hour with those
old rattletrap locomotives anyway.
OF course 1 wasn't frightened; but
taking a beginner out to a place like
that isn't fun. There's no telling what
q fellow'll 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 tiger or hatnf-
not that elephants are particularly dan
gerous-but when your finest pigeon
and target shots tremble so that they
can't hit deer at so yards it's no joke
to take beginner up in the woods at
Chandi. I tried to hold him, but he
wouldn't hear Of it; told me as how
he had promised skin to a young lady
back home for her birthday, and skin
he was going to have. So we started.
We took the night express and
dropped off early In the morning at
Chandi village, where l got the stuff
for our camp, bundle of bamboos,
some stout cord and young kid for
bait. We then struck across country,
keeping well in the open, for the Chan
di river, a little haf-dried-up stream
that quenches the thirst of more tigers
In a week than all the other rivers in a
month. We crossed this stream about
three in the afternoon, and on the edge
of the jungle 1 found banyan tree,
UP which I scrambled with the help of
the youngster, and in short time had
hacked space clear to fix my bam-
boos, which 1 nailed and dashed into
kind of platform, strong and
roomy enough to hold us both COM
fortably. Then l slipped down by u
knotted rope, which was to serve us as
a ladder.
Next we drove stake deep down in
the bank of the stream and tied the kid
10 it, scratching its hind leg with a
knife so it would bleat; and, having
chucked our grub, blankets and rifles
up, we Skinned up the rope ourselves
and made everything comfortable.
Then began to breathe little easier,
for it would take pretty clever tiger
10 get at us up there.
We were none too soon, for night