boldness and fearlessness in the presence of man would
suggest either that man is entirely unknown to them, or that
they are extremely familiar with him as their natural and
most easily procured prey."

"But where did they come from?" asked Delcarte. "Could they
have traveled here from Asia?"

I shook my head. The thing was a puzzle to me. I knew that
it was practically beyond reason to imagine that tigers had
crossed the mountain ranges and rivers and all the great
continent of Europe to travel this far from their native
lairs, and entirely impossible that they should have crossed
the English Channel at all. Yet here they were, and in
great numbers.

We continued up the Tamar several miles, filled our casks,
and then landed to cook some of our deer steak, and have the
first square meal that had fallen to our lot since the
Coldwater deserted us. But scarce had we built our fire and
prepared the meat for cooking than Snider, whose eyes had
been constantly roving about the landscape from the moment
that we left the launch, touched me on the arm and pointed
to a clump of bushes which grew a couple of hundred yards
away.

Half concealed behind their screening foliage I saw the
yellow and black of a big tiger, and, as I looked, the beast
stalked majestically toward us. A moment later, he was
followed by another and another, and it is needless to state