bullet was a remembered thing, too. Although it would speedily return
to her, her courage fled and she turned and faced into the bamboos.

In an instant, Warwick was on his great veranda, calling his beaters.
Gunga Singhai, his faithful gun-carrier, slipped shells into the
magazine of his master's high-calibered close-range tiger-rifle. "The
elephant, Sahib?" he asked swiftly.

"Nay, this will be on foot. Make the beaters circle about the fringe
of bamboos. Thou and I will cross the eastern fields and shoot at her
as she breaks through."

But there was really no time to plan a complete campaign. Even now,
the first gray of twilight was blurring the sharp outlines of the
jungle, and the soft jungle night was hovering, ready to descend.
Warwick's plan was to cut through to a certain little creek that
flowed into the river and with Singhai to continue on to the edge of
the bamboos that overlooked a wide field. The beaters would prevent
the tigress from turning back beyond the village, and it was at least
possible that he would get a shot at her as she burst from the jungle
and crossed the field to the heavier thickets beyond.

"Warwick Sahib walks into the teeth of his enemy," Khusru, the hunter,
told a little group that watched from the village gate. "Nahara will
collect her debts."

A little brown boy shivered at his words and wondered if the beaters
would turn and kick him, as they had always done before, if he should
attempt to follow them. It was the tiger-hunt, in view of his own
village, and he sat down, tremulous with rapture, in the grass to