One evening after dinner the four chums—unusual circumstance—were all present; MacNab, seated at the big round table, engaged in putting up a remarkably neat parcel, the others lounging at ease, smoking and talking. “Bedad, I know the address of that!” drawled FitzGerald from his long cane chair, “St. Andrew’s Lodge, Crieff, Perthshire, N.B. Ahem—presents endear absents.” “N.B.,” retorted MacNab, “_you_ don’t send many!” “Why, man alive, it’s all I can do to keep myself in boots! And you’re wrong about presents, for I did send my sister a ruby ring out of ‘Top-Note’s’ winnings. Things are getting so bad with me financially”—here he struck a match and then went on—“that some day I’ll be obliged to make a present of myself!” Shafto, who was reading, looked up over the edge of his book and said: “How do you know you won’t be declined with thanks?” “I will take an observation and make sure, me boy—I’m not a confounded fool. Talking of fools—what about your crazy expedition to-morrow? I say,” addressing himself particularly to Roscoe and MacNab, “did you know that this fellow is going out tiger shooting? Tiger shooting, if you please! Tiger shooting is to be his way of spending the Sabbath; what do you say to _that_, my stiff-necked Presbyterian?” “Tiger shooting where?” inquired Roscoe. “Somewhere near Elephant Point, with Stafford of the Buffers,” replied Shafto. “We have got leave, a pass and two trackers.” “You’ll find it a pretty expensive business,” remarked the canny Scotsman. “Worse than that!” supplemented Roscoe. “There will be no bag, no tiger skin, claws, whiskers, or fat. As long as I’ve been in Rangoon—and that’s some years—I’ve been hearing of this same tiger. Dozens of parties have been out after him, with no success; he is still living on his reputation—just a myth and a fortune to the trappers. Lower Burma is much too wet a district for the great cat tribe.” “But I am told that there are plenty of elephants and tigers in this district,” argued Shafto. “And what about the tiger that was actually crawling on the Pagoda not so very long ago! Why, hundreds of people saw the brute; it was shot by a fellow called Bacon.” As this was a hard and unanswerable fact Roscoe was for the moment silenced. After a short pause he continued: “All the same, I don’t believe in the Elephant Point tiger; the other was no doubt a pious beast—who came from Chin Hills to make a pilgrimage.” “You’ll have a fine, rough journey, me boy.” said FitzGerald; “nasty deep swamps, terrible thorn thickets, grass ten foot high—it wouldn’t be _my_ idea of pleasure.” “No,” retorted Shafto, “tiger shooting and turkey-trotting are widely apart.”