amp only to find that we had left half an hour before for
another village where the brute had killed two wild cats early in the
morning.

Again, the tiger pushed open the door of a house at daybreak just as the
members of the family were getting up, stole a dog from the "heaven's
well," dragged it to a hillside and partly devoured it. We were in camp
only a mile away and our Chinese hunters found the carcass on a narrow
ledge in the sword grass high up on the mountain side. The spot was an
impossible one to watch and we set a huge grizzly bear trap which had been
carried with us from New York.

It seemed out of the question for any animal to return to the carcass of
the dog without getting caught and yet the tiger did it. With his hind
quarters on the upper terrace he dropped down, stretched his long neck
across the trap, seized the dog which had been wired to a tree and pulled
it away. It was evident that he was quite unconscious of the trap for his
fore feet had actually been placed upon one of the jaws only two inches
from the pan which would have sprung it.

One afternoon we responded to a call from Bui-tao, a village seven miles
beyond Lung-tao, where the blue tiger had been seen that day. The natives
assured us that the animal continually crossed a hill, thickly clothed with
pines and sword grass just above the village and even though it was late
when we arrived Harry thought it wise to set the trap that night.

It was pitch dark before we reached the ridge carrying the trap, two
lanterns, an electric flash-lamp and a wretched little dog for bait. We had
been engaged for about fifteen minutes making a pen for the dog, and
Caldwell and I were on our knees over the trap when suddenly a low rumbling
growl came from the grass not twenty feet away. We jumped to our feet just
as it sounded again, this time ending in a snarl. The tiger had arrived a
few moments too early and we were in the rather uncomfortable position of
having to return to the village by way of a narrow trail through the
jungle. With our rifles ready and the electric lamp cutting a brilliant
path in the darkness we walked slowly toward the edge of the sword grass
hoping to see the flash of the tiger's eyes, but the beast backed off
beyond the range of the light into an impenetrable tangle where we could
not follow. Apparently he was frightened by the lantern, for we did not
hear him again.

After nearly a month of disappointments such as these Mr.