that my bullet had struck where I aimed, right between the shoulders, as he crouched for the spring. It should have been a fatal shot; but the tiger had vanished. Suddenly Ainslie's stories of the previous night recurred to me. I glanced down the stream and saw, twenty yards from where we stood, a discoloured patch in the dark water. I had the elephant brought opposite it. I stared hard until I believed that I could make out the outlines of a tiger below the surface and see the stripes on the body. I pointed it out to the _mahout_. He gazed unbelievingly for a moment, then gave vent to an excited shout. The beaters had meantime reached the opposite bank and were calling across to ask if I had hit the tiger. When we told them where it was they laughed incredulously. I ordered Bechan to dismount from Khartoum's neck and enter the stream. With the air of one who does a ridiculous thing to please a fretful child, he slid down the bank and walked into the water. Suddenly he yelled in terror and sprang for the dry land. He had put his bare foot on the tiger's body. The animal was lying dead in three feet of water. The others urged Bechan to go in again; and with some trepidation he did so. Reaching down he lifted up the tail and held the tip up above the surface. The other _mahouts_ and my orderly shouted with joy, for it meant largesse to them, and jumped in after Bechan. They moved the body easily to the edge of the water but could not lift it up the bank. We called some coolies from huts close by; and it took twenty men to raise the carcass up to the level. [Illustration: THE TIGER'S LYING IN STATE.] [Illustration: THE TIGER'S LAST HOME.] The tiger was a fine young male in splendid condition, and measured nine and a half feet from nose to tip of tail. After photographing it, we brought the elephants in turn up to it as it lay on the ground and encouraged them to smell and strike it. This is done to show them that the animal is not a foe to be dreaded. We all had to help in lifting the limp body on to Khartoum's back; for a well-grown tiger weighs nearly three hundred and fifty pounds. It was fastened on to the pad with ropes; and we started back in triumphal procession to Alipur Duar, where the beast was flayed and the flesh scrambled for by the women of the neighbourhood, who gathered like vultures. The skin was pegged out on the grass to dry, before being sent to a taxidermist to be dressed and mounted to adorn my bungalow. CHAPTER IX A FOREST MARCH