tarted.

Our English friend was much annoyed, Rashid and the shikari and the
cook laughed heartily. No one, however, was for going back. Upon the
following day our friend destroyed a jackal and two conies, which
consoled him somewhat in the dearth of tigers, and we rode forward
resolutely, asking our question at each village as we went along.
Everywhere we were assured that there were really tigers in the
mountain, and from some of the villages young sportsmen who owned guns
insisted upon joining our excursion, which showed that they themselves
believed such game existed. But their adherence, though it gave us
hope, was tiresome, for they smoked our cigarettes and ate our food.

At last, towards sunset on the seventh evening of our expedition, we
saw a wretched-looking village on the heights with no trees near it,
and only meagre strips of cultivation on little terraces, like ledges,
of the slope below.

Our friend had just been telling me that he was weary of this
wild-goose chase, with all the rascals upon earth adhering to us. He
did not now believe that there were tigers in the mountain, nor did I.
And we had quite agreed to start for home upon the morrow, when the
people of that miserable village galloped down to greet us with
delighted shouts, as if they had been waiting for us all their lives.

'What is your will?' inquired the elders of the place, obsequiously.

'Tigers,' was our reply. 'Say, O old man, are there any tigers in your
neighbourhood?'

The old man flung up both his hands to heaven, and his face became
transfigured as in ecstasy. He shouted: 'Is it tigers you desire?
This, then, is the place where you will dwell content. Tigers? I
should think so! Tigers everywhere!'

The elders pointed confidently to the heights, and men and women--even
children--told us: 'Aye, by Allah! Hundreds--thousands of them; not
just one or two. As many as the most capacious man could possibly
devour in forty years.'

'It looks as if we'd happened right at last,' our friend said, smiling
for the first time in three days.

We pitched our tent upon the village threshing-floor, the only flat
place, except roofs of houses, within sight. The village elders dined
with us, and stayed till nearly midnight, telling us about the tigers
and the way to catch them. Some of the stories they related were
incredible, but not much more so than is usual in that kind of
narrative. It seemed unnecessary for one old man to warn us gra