“Well,” remarked uncle, “a Bengal tiger would be an interesting neighbor, that’s certain; and I don’t believe he would be long in making his presence known. However, such stories generally require a good deal of allowance. As likely as not, there was no tiger aboard of the steamer, after all.” “Oh, I reckon there was,” said the neighbor; “but then, of course, we can’t tell; people like excitement, and when such a rumor gets started it grows very fast.” “Yes, that’s true; we shall have a whole menagerie ashore here before night. When I was a boy, in Maine, there was a story that a lion and an elephant had made their escape from somebody’s show and taken to the woods. And, dear me! it spread like the scarlet fever! The children ran all the way to school and all the way back; and the big girls actually cried in the entry, they were so frightened. Some of the mischievous boys would make ‘elephant tracks’ in the road, and this added to the panic. But we never could hear of any showman who had lost such animals, and all on a sudden the thing came to nothing. I guess the tiger story will end in the same way.” “Why, father,” said Cousin Harold, the fourteen-year-old boy of the family, “I don’t see why it isn’t likely enough to be true. I almost hope there is something in it, though I shouldn’t want him to be killing people’s cattle and things. Just think of it--a big Bengal tiger, and right here in Georgia, too! How I should like to have a chance at him with my gun!” “Why, Harold,” said his mother, “how you talk. If I believed such a creature to be anywhere in the neighborhood, I’d shut you up in the smoke-house rather that let you go into the woods.” “What, and make bacon of a poor fellow?” replied the young lad, gayly. Uncle Hayward and his family were New England people, who had settled in Georgia near the Ocmulgee River, where I was now paying them a really delightful visit. Harold and myself, being very fond of hunting, spent much time together in pursuit of the various kinds of game to be found in the region. Many an old “mammy” and many an “Uncle Remus” was made the happier by the gift of some fat ’coon or juicy ’possum which we brought down from the tall timber. Inspired as we were with all the enthusiasm of young sportsmen, the thought of an escaped tiger had a pleasing excitement for us. We were, therefore, a little disappointed when another of our neighbors, stopping for a few minutes as he passed the house, made very light of the rumor, saying it was only a foolish story to frighten people. “A tiger would soon make ugly work among the cattle,” he remarked, “and it would be no joking matter to have one about the neighborhood.” “That’s true,” replied Uncle Hayward. “I don’t know, though,” he added, “but I’d risk my big Jersey with him. I’m thinking ’twould be about ‘which and t’other’ between the two, as the saying is.”