The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1901-11-19
TRAPPING A TIGER
By M. Quad.
[coprright. 19O1. by G. B. Lewi,.l

There are no inns along the high
ways of India, as the average reader
has probably been told before, but the
traveller seeking rest and refreshment
turns into one of the free bungalows
provided by the government. He finds
cooking utensils, dishes and a bunk,
and there is generally a native care
taker. The rule of the road is that no
traveller stops longer than over night
except in case of sickness or accident.
Few of the bungalows have doors or
windows, and unless in the height of
the rainy season no blankets are hung
up at the openings.
1t was in a bungalow on the highway
between the towns of Rampore and
Bagrah, in the province of Bengal, that
Sir Edward Potter, an English tourist
doing India, met tragic fate. A party
of six had arrived at the bungalow an
hour before dark. When supper had
been prepared and eaten, the gentle
men smoked and chatted for a couple
of hours and then lay down on the We
randa to sleep-that is, five of them did,
while Sir Edward had a bed made up
for him in the large room. The near
est jungle was mile away, and as the
grounds had been beaten over for SER
penis no one felt any fears as he made
ready for sleep. 1t was a starlight
night, with everything quiet, and all
the party fell into sound sleep. They
were awakened at midnight or little
LOT Inv -I,Yio hoI In
got to their feet they beheld an enor-
nous tiger trotting off with Sir Ed
ward in his grip.
The tiger had stolen out of the near
est cover and taken thorough survey
of the bungalow before Selling the vic
tim. Any one Of the five sleepers Of
fered him an easy victim, but he pass
ed them by. He made his way between
two of them and entered the room by
window and seized Sir Edward by the
shoulder. The shouts of the others did
not rattle the beast in the least. With
a twist of his head he threw the man
over on his back and went off at lei
surely pace, and he was neither fired
on nor pursued. No one dared shoot
for fear of killing the man, and to have
pursued the tiger into the jungle would
have been foolishness. AS none of the
party was a tiger hunter, there was
nothing to do but resume their journey
and give notice at the next post of
what had occurred. They had scarcely
left the bungalow when man named
Reed arrived there. He was an Amer
lean and what the English call "cute
Yankee" He had gone out to India
from New York after tiger skins. In
stead of taking rifles and cartridges he
had taken beartraps. Landing in Cal
cutta with no less than two dozen mon
ster steel traps, he was making his way
up to the tiger country to do business.
He wasn't blowing his horn very much.
as he knew that every Englishman in
India would look upon him with con-
tempt, but as there was no law against
trapping tigers he meant to send home
a shipload of skins if he could.
Reed had no sooner heard of the
tragedy of the night before than he
baited his trap for his first tiger. He
traced the beast into the jungle for
200 yards and then set one of his traps
on a path and baited it by tying a kid
to a stake just In the rear of it. This
was done early in the morning, but
with no hope that the tiger would
leave his lair until late in the evening.
He did leave it, however, much earlier
than that. Strangely enough, he con-
tented himself with sinking his fangs
into Sir Edward and killing him, but
did not mutilate the body in the slight
est. The bleating of the kid called him
from his lair about 3 o'clock in the aft
ernoon, and at that same hour the bear
trap man went forth to see if his trap
was all right. AS he was advancing
along the path in one direction the tiger
was coming up from another, and the
result was that as Reed halted within
five feet of the bleating and frightened
kid the tiger looked him in the eyes
from a distance of about forty feet.
Both stood still and stared for a min
ute Reed had rife, but he was poor
shot and dared not take the risk of fir
ing. The tiger was no doubt astonish-
ed and puzzled, and perhaps a yell
would have frightened him off, but as
no yell came he began to work up his
temper. For two or three minutes he
switched his tail and growled and then
of a sudden rose in the air like bird.
He had divided the forty feet into two
/ leaps, but the second was never made.
AS he touched the earth after his first
he fell upon the pan of the trap, and
the jaws closed around both forelegs.
The trap was secured by chain
stout enough to draw a sawlog, but
caught as he was the beast soon broke
| the chain and went off into the jungle
with the trap. 1t was while he was be-
! ing followed that the body Of Sir Ed
ward was found. 1t seems hardly cred
| ible, but that tiger gave Reed and his
native assistants a two days hunt He
dragged the monster trap through
thickets and up hillsides and across
ground where a man could hardly
make his way, and when finally come
I'D with and killed he had traversed
! distance of eighteen miles and had bit
ten one Of his legs off in hopes to get
clear of the trap. Not only that, but
an hour before he was come up with
and finished off, the beast, fettered as
he was and covered with his own blood,
hobbed into small village and tried
to seize a small child in its teeth.
1t was Reeds first experience with
his Yankee idea for thinning out the
dangerous beasts of India and making
a few dollars at the same time, and he
found that it worked very we'll as the
| friends of the lamented Sir Edward