llowed by the peon and herdsmen to shew us the way.

I expected two friends, officers from Calcutta, that very day, and
wished not to kill the tigress but to keep her for our combined
shooting next day. We had not proceeded far when, on the other side of
the nullah, we saw dense clouds of dust rising, and heard a confused,
rushing, trampling sound, mingled with the clashing of horns, and the
snorting of a herd of angry buffaloes.

It was the wildest sight I have ever seen in connection with animal
life. The buffaloes were drawn together in the form of a crescent;
their eyes glared fiercely, and as they advanced in a series of short
runs, stamping with their hoofs, and angrily lashing their tails,
their horns would come together with a clanging, clattering crash, and
they would paw the sand, snort and toss their heads, and behave in the
most extraordinary manner.

The cause of all this commotion was not far to seek. Directly in
front, retreating slowly, with stealthy, prowling, crawling steps, and
an occasional short, quick leap or bound to one side or the other, was
a magnificent tigress, looking the very personification of baffled
fury. Ever and anon she crouched down to the earth, tore up the sand
with her claws, lashed her tail from side to side, and with lips
retracted, long moustaches quivering with wrath, and hateful eyes
scintillating with rage and fury, she seemed to meditate an attack on
the angry buffaloes. The serried array of clashing horns, and the
ponderous bulk of the herd, seemed however to daunt the snarling
vixen; at their next rush she would bound back a few paces, crouch
down, growl, and be forced to move back again, by the short,
blundering rush of the crowd.

All the calves and old cows were in the rear of the herd, and it was
not a little comical to witness their ungainly attitudes. They would
stretch their clumsy necks, and shake their heads, as if they did not
rightly understand what was going on. Finding that if they stopped too
long to indulge their curiosity, there was a danger of their getting
separated from the fighting members of the herd, they would make a
stupid, headlong, lumbering lurch forward, and jostle each other, in
their blundering panic.

It was a grand sight. The tigress was the embodiment of lithe and
savage beauty, but her features expressed the wildest baffled rage. I
could have shot the striped vixen over and over again, but I wished to
keep her for my friends, and I