u do that, Doctor?"

"I shall build a sort of cage near the point where the tiger has twice
entered the jungle. I will take with me in the cage a woman or girl from
the village. From time to time she shall cry out as if in pain, and
as the tiger is evidently somewhere in this neighborhood it is likely
enough he will come out to see about it.

"We must have the cage pretty strong, or I shall never get anyone to sit
with me; besides, on a dark night, there is no calculating on killing
to a certainty with the first shot, and it is just as well to be on the
safe side. In daylight it would be a different matter altogether. I can
rely upon my weapon when I can see, but on a dark night it is pretty
well guesswork."

The villagers were at once engaged to erect a stout cage eight feet
square and four high, of beams driven into the ground six inches apart,
and roofed in with strong bars. There was a considerable difficulty in
getting anyone to consent to sit by the Doctor, but at last the widow
of one of the men who had been killed agreed for the sum of twenty-five
rupees to pass the night there, accompanied by her child four years old.

The Doctor's skill with his rifle was notorious, and it was rather the
desire of seeing her husband's death avenged than for the sake of the
money that she consented to keep watch. There was but one tree suitable
for the watchers; it stood some forty yards to the right of the cage,
and it was arranged that both the subalterns should take their station
in it.

"Now look here, lads," the Doctor said, "before we start on this
business, it must be quite settled that you do not fire till you hear
my rifle. That is the first thing; the second is that you only fire when
the brute is a fair distance from the cage. If you get excited and blaze
away anyhow, you are quite as likely to hit me as you are the tiger.
Now, I object to take any risk whatever on that score. You will have a
native shikari in the tree with you to point out the tiger, for it is
twenty to one against your making him out for yourselves. It will be
quite indistinct, and you have no chance of making out its head or
anything of that sort, and you have to take a shot at it as best you
may.

"Remember there must not be a word spoken. If the brute does come,
it will probably make two or three turns round the cage before it
approaches it, and may likely enough pass close to you, but in no case
fire. You can't make sure of killing it, a