Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 October 1889 — MY FIRST TIGER. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

MY FIRST TIGER.

A Thrilling Adventure in Cochin China.

T the entrance to k the river of Saigon, \the French capital ]oi Cochin China, /and forty miles [ from the city, there •Jis a lonely telegraph station, where the English cable from Hong Kong and Singapore, and the French cable to . Tonqnin, touch ground. As I am

much interested in telegraphy, and I had a circular letter of introduction from Sir James Anderson, the managing director of the Eastern Extension Telegraph Company, I determined to pay these exiled electricians a visit. And then I learned that twelve years ago an operator had shot a tiger that had come on the veranda and looked in at the window while he was at work, and that three months ago another had been killed in a more orthodox way. So when the next steamer of the Messageries Maritimes picked up her pilot at 4 a. m., off Cape St. James, I tumbled with my things into his boat and rowed ashore as the ship’s sidelights disappeared in the distance and the lighthouse began to grow pale in the sunrise. Next morning an Annamito hunter who had been sent out by Mr. Langdon, the Superintendent of the station, to look for tracks, returned and reported that he had builta“mirador,” and we were to make our first attempt that evening. At 5:30 that afternoon we started, Mitt (that was his name or nickname) walking and running ahead, and I following him on a pony. We were on a small rising ground, dotted with bushes, in the middle of a rough tangle of forest and brushwood. I looked for the “mirador,” and, not finding it, I yelled an inquiry into Mitt’s ear (for he was stone deaf). He rinted to a tree fifty yards awav, and saw how marvelously he had concealed it. He had chosen two slim trees growing four feet apart; behind these he had planted two bamboos at the other corners of the square, and then he had led two or three thickly leaved creepers from the ground,- and wound them in and around and over a little platform and roof, till he had made a perfect nest of live foliage. The floor was about twenty feet from the ground, and it looked perilously fragile to hold two men. But it was a masterpiece of hunting-craft. In response to a peculiar cry fropi Mitt, two natives appeared with a little black pig slung on a pole, yelling lustily. * The ' “mirador” (or “median,”" - as I believe it is called in India) overlooked a -&li§ftt depression in * which an oblong pond had been constructed for.the buffaloes to wallow in, as the ugly brutes .can not work unless they are allowed to soak themselves two or* three times a • day. By the side of this Master Piggy was securely fastened, neck and heels, ■to his infinite disgust. Then the - two natives took themselves off with their pole, Mitt gave me a “leg up” into the “mirador,” which shook and swayed as we climbed gingerly in, and we ar-

tanged ourselves for our long watch. 4 soft cap instead of the big sun-helmet, bottle of cold tea, and the flask put handy, half a dozen cartridges laid out, the rifle loaded and cocked. “The rest is silence.” Till 10:30 we sat like two stone Buddhas. Then live wild pigs came trotting down to the water to -drink, which was an intensely welcome break in the monotony. At 11:30 Mitt made signs to me to go to sleep for a while and he would watch. At 12:30 be woke me, and immediately fell back in his turn fast asleep. The rest, and the consciousness that I had no loagf 'r the sharp eyes of my companion to n l v wpon, made me doubly attentive, and I watched every twig.

Suddenly, in perfect silence and without the slightest warning, a big black object flashed by the far side of the little pool. It was like the swoop past of an owl in the starlight, like the shadow of a passing bird, utterly noiseless and instantaneous. Every nerve in my body was athrill, every muscle stiff with excitement. Slowly I put out my left hand and grasped my sleeping companion hard by the leg. If he made the slightest noise we were lost. Like a trained hunter he awoke and lifted himself into a sitting position without a sound. Rifle to shoulder we peeped through our peep-holes. A moment later a blood-curdling scream broke the stillness, followed by yell after yell of utter terror. It was the wretched pig who had woke to find himself in the clutches of the tiger, and the effect on nerves strained in silence to their utmost tension was electrical. I shall never forget that moment. The tiger was there before me, he had the pig in his grasp, in another second he would probably be gone. And I could see nothing, absolutely nothing. It was pitch dark in the depression where he was standing, and I might as well have tired with my eyes shut. Stare as I would, I could not distinguish the least thing at which to aim. And all the time the pig was yelling loud enough to wake the dead. Suddenly I saw the same black shadow pass up the little incline for a dozen yards. The pig’s screams dropped into a long howl. My heart sank. Had the tiger gone ? No, for an instant afterward the shadow shot down the slope again and the yells broke out afresh. The situation was agonizing. I could hardly resist the temptation to fire both barrels at random into the darkness. Do I see something ? Yes, the black mass of the pig, spinning head over heels on his ropes like a butterfly on a pin. And just above him a very pale faint curved line of white. It is the white horseshoe of the tiger’s chest, and the inside of his forelegs, as he has turned for a moment in my direction. Now or never. A last glance

down the almost indistinguishable barrels, and I press the trigger. The blinding flash leaps out, the answering roar scares even the terrified pig into silence, and a blue veil of smoke, hiding everything, hangs before us. Mitt turned toward me with interrogation or reproach in his eyes, and shook his head doubtfully. For two minutes we sat and listened. Then a long, hard-drawn breath, expelled in a painful, heavy sigh, came out of the bushes on our right. I never heard a sweeter sound in my life. It meant that the tiger was hit so badly that he could not get away at once, and evidently hit somewhere about his lungs. Every two minutes for half an hour this sobbing sigh was audible. Then it ceased, but no matter. If he was hurt as badly as that we should get him for certain. So I lighted my pipe aud tried to wait patiently for daylight. It was so long in coming that I began trt think the sun had overslept itself, but at last at 5 o’clock w'e climbed down and stretched our cramped limbs; the coolie arrived at almost the same minuie with the pony, the two natives returned with their pole, and we started out to reconnoiter. First, as to the pig. Instead of being half eaten, as we supposed, he ivas all right except for five long scratches down one side, where the tiger had evidently put out his paw and felt of him with a natural curiosity as to what he w r as doing there. Just behind him were two deep footprints. That was all. No blood, no tracks, and we looked cautiously round without seeing a sign. Fifty yards away there was a stretch of grass three feet high -where he was very likely to be hidden. "Where could the tiger be, anyway ? Mitt and I w alked over to the edge of the grass and looked carefully all along it for tracks. That moment came very near being the last for one of us. While we were peering about the tiger suddenly sat up in the grass not ten feet from us, and, with a tremendous roar, sprang clean out into the open. He was so near that it was out of the question to shoot. If I had flung my rifle forward it _ would have fallen on him. I could see his white teeth distinctly and the red gap of his throat. I remember even at that moment wondering how he could possibly open his mouth so wide. Mitt and I were, perhaps, ten yards apart, and the tiger leaped out midway between us. Instinctively the Annamite made a wild rush away on Ms side and I on mine. The tiger had evidently walked just far enough into the grass to be hidden and had then lain down. His presence there took us so completely by surprise that we were helpless. I may as well confess that my state of mind at that moment was one of dreadful funk. If the tiger had been slightly less wounded than he was, it is perfectly certain that in another instant he would have killed one or the other of us. We had not the remotest chance of escaping him by running away. But his first spring was evidently all he could manage, for he turned immediately and sneaked back into the cover. Mitt fired into the moving grass after him, in spite of my shouted protests, tearing a piece of skin off his fiaaik, as we afterward dis-

covered. We took five minutes to recover from our scare, and then, as the beast was practically helpless, we followed him through the grass. After a hundred yards, his growls brought us up short again. I sent Mitt up a tree, and he reported the sight of his head. So I beckoned him down,climbed np myself, pulled up the rifle after me, and there I could distinctly see the tiger about seventy yards away, sitting on his haunches, with his back toward me. I aimed at his spine behind his shoulders, and when the bullet struck he simply got up arid turned ball round, giving me a splendid chance. My second bullet struck him in exactly the right place, and he made a grab u[ith his mouth when it entered, theD spun round three or four times, like s terrier chasing his tail, and fell in a heap. At this moment the three othei men, who had not gone home after all. arrived on their ponies, so we walked carefully up to him in line. There hs lav, or rather she, for it was a fint tigress, a little under eight feet long and very beautifully marked.

“MITT.”