ter which will be needed during the day. It is
not until the sun begins to rise, when morning ablutions have been
carefully performed, and the first sleepiness of the waking hour has
departed from heavy eyes, that the people of the village begin to set
about the avocations of the day.

Penghulu Mat Saleh arose that morning and performed his usual daily
routine before he collected a party of Malays to aid him in his search
for the wounded tiger. He had no difficulty in finding men who were
willing to share the excitement of the adventure, and presently he set
off with a ragged following of near a dozen at his heels, the party
having two guns and many spears and _kris_. They reached the spot where
the spring-gun had been set, and they found that beyond a doubt the
tiger had returned to his kill. The tracks left by the great pads were
fresh, and the tearing up of the earth on one side of the dead buffalo,
in a spot where the grass was thickly flecked with blood, showed that
the shot had taken effect.

Penghulu Mat Saleh and his people then set down steadily to follow the
trail of the wounded tiger. This was an easy matter, for the beast had
gone heavily on three legs, the off-hind leg dragging uselessly. In
places, too, a clot of blood showed red among the dew-drenched leaves
and grasses. None the less the Penghulu and his party followed slowly
and with caution. They knew that a wounded tiger is never in a mood in
which a child may play with him, and also that, even when he has only
three legs with which to spring upon his enemies, he can on occasion
arrange for a large escort of human beings to accompany him into the
land of shadows.

The trail led through the brushwood, in which the dead buffalo lay, and
thence into a belt of jungle which edged the river bank a few hundred
yards above Penghulu Mat Saleh's village, and extended up-stream to
Kuala Chin Lama, a distance of half a dozen miles. The tiger turned
up-stream when this jungle was reached, and half a mile higher up he
came out upon a slender wood-path.

When Penghulu Mat Saleh had followed thus far, he halted and looked at
his people.

'Know ye whither this track leads, my brothers?' he asked in a whisper.

The men nodded, but said never a word. A glance at them would have shown
you that they were anxious and uneasy.

'What say ye?' continued the Penghulu. 'Do we still follow this trail?'

'It is as thou wilt, O Penghulu,' said the oldest man of the party,