So the man began thinking, even while the tiger was carrying him. He made up his mind at once. He must pretend to be dead. So he did not move or make the least bit of sound. Even then he did not see how he could escape, as the tiger would soon start _eating_ him! But still he would not despair. The tiger carried the man to his den in the jungle. The den was just a hollow in the ground under a large tree. The tiger dumped the man into the hollow. The man thought his end had now come. He could not escape from right in front of the tiger's eyes. And he thought that the tiger would start eating him at once. Even though he was really alive, the tiger would eat him just the same. But, to his surprise, the tiger did not start eating him at once. Instead, the tiger looked around, and gave a purr, and then a growl. What did that mean? The man could not tell. Then the tiger just flung upon the man some of the sand from the side of the hollow. The man understood _that_: the tiger was trying to hide or _cache_ his food--as some wild animals do. But luckily the tiger only flung the sand loosely over the man, just enough to cover him; he did not quite bury the man; or else the man might have been smothered. Then the tiger ran off into the jungle. The man was puzzled to know what the tiger meant by that. But you may be sure the man did not wait to work out the puzzle in his mind. Instead, he jumped up from the hollow. Here was his chance to escape! But he was afraid to run far; for the tiger might return at any moment and catch him again. So the man just climbed up the tree under which the den was. And he went up the tree as high as he could, and hid himself among the leaves. After a while he heard a sound below, at a little distance. He looked down and saw the tiger returning. But now there was a tigress with him, and two cubs. Then the man understood the puzzle. When the tiger had brought home the dinner, he had found that his wife and children were out. So he waited a while; and as they still did not come home, he first looked around for them, and then he gave a loud _call_ to his family to come to dinner. That was the purr and growl he gave. As they still did not come home, the tiger just hid the dinner to keep it safe, and then he went out to _fetch_ his family home to dinner. But when he did fetch them, the dinner had run away! Then the tiger family set up such a wail and lament over the lost dinner! "I felt quite sorry for them," said the man up in the tree, afterward. "They kept up the wailing and growling and lamenting for a long time. Only, as it was _I_ who was to have been the tigers' dinner, I wasn't so very sorry that the dinner had escaped!" Meanwhile, the other man who had been fishing with him had run to the nearest village. The villagers got together a herd of bull buffaloes, and started tracking the tiger by the paw marks he had made on the ground. In this way the villagers brought the bull buffaloes to the tiger's den.