here was really nothing in the documents produced on either
side to show which ditch was intended by the original grants. Evidently,
at the time they were made, very many years before, one ditch or the
other was not in existence; but there was no proof as to which was the
more recent, although both sides professed that all traditions handed
down to them asserted the ditch on their side to be the more recent.

He was riding along the road through the great jungle, at his horse's
own pace, which happened for the moment to be a gentle trot, when
a piercing cry rang through the air a hundred yards ahead. Bathurst
started from his reverie, and spurred his horse sharply; the animal
dashed forward at a gallop. At a turn in the road he saw, twenty yards
ahead of him, a tiger, standing with a foot upon a prostrate figure,
while a man in front of it was gesticulating wildly. The tiger stood as
if hesitating whether to strike down the figure in front or to content
itself with that already in its power.

The wild shouts of the man had apparently drowned the sound of the
horse's feet upon the soft road, for the animal drew back half a pace as
it suddenly came into view.

The horse swerved at the sight, and reared high in the air as Bathurst
drove his spurs into it. As its feet touched the ground again, Bathurst
sprang off and rushed at the tiger, and brought down the heavy lash
of his whip with all his force across its head. With a fierce snarl it
sprang back two paces, but again and again the whip descended upon it,
and bewildered and amazed at the attack it turned swiftly and sprang
through the bushes.

Bathurst, knowing that there was no fear of its returning, turned at
once to the figure on the road. It was, as in even the momentary glance
he had noticed, a woman, or rather a girl of some fourteen or fifteen
years of age--the man had dropped on his knees beside her, moaning and
muttering incoherent words.

"I see no blood," Bathurst said, and stooping, lifted the light figure.
"Her heart beats, man; I think she has only fainted. The tiger must have
knocked her down in its spring without striking her. So far as I can see
she is unhurt."

He carried her to the horse, which stood trembling a few yards away,
took a flask from the holster, and poured a little brandy and water
between her lips.

Presently there was a faint sigh. "She is coming round," he said to the
man, who was still kneeling, looking on with vacant eyes, as