chance of a shot is when a path is in front of _them_ and behind _you_,
as then they are going slowly.

At first when I used to go out after them, I often got an open glade,
or road, in _front_ of me; but experience soon told me that Pat's plan
was the best. As this was a beat not so much for real sport, as to show
me how the villagers managed these affairs, we were all under Pat's
direction, and he could not have chosen better ground. I was on the
extreme left, behind a clump of young trees, with the sluggish muddy
stream on my left. Our Engineer to my right was about one hundred yards
off, and Pat himself on the extreme right, at about the same distance
from H. Behind us was the road, and in the rear the long line of nets,
with their concealed watchers. The nets are so set up on the stakes,
that when an animal bounds along and touches the net, it falls over
him, and ere he can extricate himself from its meshes, the vigilant
Banturs rush out and despatch him with spears and clubs.

We waited a long time hearing nothing of the beaters, and watching the
red and black ants hurrying to and fro. Huge green-bellied spiders
oscillated backwards and forwards in their strong, systematically woven
webs. A small mungoose kept peeping out at me from the roots of an old
india-rubber tree, and aloft in the branches an amatory pair of hidden
ringdoves were billing and cooing to each other. At this moment a
stealthy step stole softly behind, and the next second Mr. Mehrman
Singh crept quietly and noiselessly beside me, his face flushed with
rapid walking, his eye flashing with excitement, his finger on his lip,
and a look of portentous gravity and importance striving to spread
itself over his speaking countenance. Mehrman had been up all night at
the feast, and was as drunk as a piper. It was no use being angry with
him, so I tried to keep him quiet and resumed my watch.