he mysterious movements
or amazing cunning of the tigers. The comic episodes it were not
seemly to dwell upon. But fifty-seven! Nothing for it now but a hurry
call to the Commissioner and the Maharaja for elephants and an army of
tiger-hunters, a mobilization of the best _shikaris_ in all India, for
a regular campaign against these beasts.

In fourteen days that army was on the spot, and I enlisted under the
banner of Colonel Howe of the Tenth Hussars. The staff was made up of
_shikaris_, and the beaters were of the rank and file. Maps were
called for and studied, scouts sent far and wide into the theater of
operations; native reports were sifted and their exaggerations
discounted with the skill of long practice.

[Illustration: LAST WALL OF DEFENSE

THE TIGER-HUNTING ELEPHANTS CLOSE THEIR RANKS TO RECEIVE THE CHARGE]

Tiger war is a science with axioms of its own. First of all come the
weather and the water-supply. It's useless to look for tigers in a dry
country, and it's useless to try and find them in the wet season, when
there is plenty of water everywhere. "Stripes" must be hunted in hot
weather, when great heat and the water distribution limit his
wanderings, and when forest leaves have fallen and the dense jungle is
thinned out.

And yet, there are all kinds of problems. For instance, Indian weather
is so erratic that, while there may be water and cover and tigers one
season, all three will be absent the next. Further, there is marked
individuality among tigers. One will lie in water all day, and never
venture forth till the sun has sunk behind the western hills; another
prowls boldly by day. Some prey on forest beasts--chiefly the spotted
cheetah and sambur-stag; others, again, mark out domestic animals. And
last comes the tigress with clamorous cubs, who suddenly learns by
accident or impulse that man, hitherto so feared, is in reality the
easiest prey of all.

We had a front of eighty miles. Naturally we needed a big force; we
probably mustered three hundred, all told. Our base of operations was
a railroad-station twenty miles away, and we doubted at first whether
we could live on the country, for the terrified people had abandoned
all cultivation, and were living on bamboo-seeds and the fleshy
blossoms of the mahwa-tree. This was a serious question--this and our
transport. We had seventy-four elephants, and each ate seven hundred
pounds of green stuff or sugar-cane every day; and of camels,
bullocks,