Bill Barlow's Budget

BAGGING A BIG TIGER

The Jungle Monarch Was Trapped Lolling In His Bath.

A FEAT OF MARKSMANSHIP

Only the Brute's Head Showed Above the Water, and the Well Placed Bullet, Fired From an Elephant, Entered the Nostril and Broke His Neck.

An interesting account of a tiger hunt is given by one who had a wide experience in hunting this most dangerous of beasts. Mounted upon elephants, the writer and his companions had been beating the jungle without making a find until, as they were about to give up the search, a sudden disturbance among the elephants appeared to betoken a tiger near at hand. Giving directions to the others as to the order of marching their elephants, the writer ordered his mahout to turn into the thick feathered foliage to the left in search of a pool of water which he remembered to be there.

There was a slight descent to a long but narrow hollow about fifty or sixty yards wide. This was filled with clear water for an unknown length.

I was just about to make a remark when, instead of speaking, I gently grasped the mahout by the head as I leaned over the howdah and by this signal stopped the elephant.

There was a remarkable sight.

About 120 yards distant on my right the head and neck of a large tiger, clean and beautiful, reposed above the surface of the water, while the body was cooling, concealed from view.

There was our friend enjoying his quiet bath, while we had been pounding away up and down the jungles which he had left.

"Fire at him," whispered the mahout, "or you will lose him! He will see us and be off."

"Hold your tongue!" I answered. "He can't see us, for the sun is at our back and is shining in his eyes. See how green they are."

At this moment the tiger quietly rose from his bath and sat up on end like a dog. I never saw such a sight. His head was beautiful, and the eyes shone like two green electric lights as the sun's rays reflected from them, but his huge body was dripping with muddy water, as he had been reclining upon the alluvial bottom.

For quite a minute the tiger sat up in the same position. At last, as if satisfied that he was in safety and seclusion, he once more lay down with only the head and neck exposed above the surface.

"Back the elephant gently, but do not turn around," I whispered. Immediately the elephant backed through the feathery tamarisk without the slightest sound, and we found ourselves outside the jungle. We could breathe freely.

"Go on, now, quite gently till I press your head, then turn to the right, descending through the tamarisk till I again touch your turban."

I counted the elephant's paces as she moved softly parallel with the jungle until I felt sure of my distance. A slight pressure upon the mahout's head and the elephant turned to the right. The waving plumes of the dark green tamarisk divided as we gently moved forward, and in another moment we stopped. There was the tiger in the same position, exactly facing me, but now about seventy-five paces distant.

"Keep the elephant quite steady," I whispered, and, sitting down upon the howdah seat, I took a rest with the rifle upon the front bar of the gun rack. A piece of tamarisk kept waving in the wind just in front of the rifle beyond my reach. The mahout leaned forward and gently bent it down. Now all was clear. The tiger's eyes were like green glass. The elephant for a moment stood like stone. I touched the trigger.

There was no response to the loud report of six drams of powder from the "five-seven-seven" rifle, no splash in the unbroken surface of the water.

The tiger's head was still there, but in a different attitude, one-half below the surface and only one cheek and one large eye still glittering like an emerald above.

Upon examination it proved that there was no hole whatever in that tiger, the bullet having entered the nostril, broken the neck and run along the body. The animal consequently had never moved.

This tiger when laid out straight, but without being pulled to increase its length, measured exactly nine feet and eight inches from nose to tail.

Youth's Companion.