No one had doubted Jess’s courage, even when we saw her come back alone: we knew there was something wrong, but in spite of every care and effort we could not find out what it was, and poor old Jess went through the night in suffering, making no sound, but moving from place to place weary and restless, giving long tired quivering sighs, and pawing at her mouth from time to time. In the morning light we again looked her all over carefully, and especially opened her mouth and examined that and her nostrils³, but could find nothing to show what was wrong.  
The puzzle was solved by accident: Ted¹ was sitting on the ground when she came up to him, looking wistfully into his face again with one of the mute appeals for help.
 
“What is it, Jess, old girl?” he said, and reaching out, he caught her head in both hands and drew her towards him; but with a sharp exclamation⁵ he instantly let go again, pricked⁶ by something, and a drop of blood oozed⁷ from one finger-tip. Under Jess’s right ear there was a hard sharp point just showing through the skin: we all felt it, and when the skin was forced back we saw it was the tip of a porcupine⁸ quill⁹. There was no pulling it out or moving it, however, nor could we for a long time find where it had entered. At last Ted noticed what looked like a tiny narrow strip of bark adhering to the outside of her lower lip, and this turned out to be the broken end of the quill, snapped off close to the flesh; not even the end of the quill was visible—only the little strip that had peeled off in the breaking.
 
Poor old Jess! We had no very grand appliances for surgery, and had to slit¹⁰ her lip down with an ordinary skinning knife. Ted held her between his knees and gripped her head with both hands, while one of us pulled with steel pliers on the broken quill until it came out. The quill had pierced her lower lip, entered the gums beside the front teeth, run all along the jaw¹² and through the flesh behind, coming out just below the ear. It was over seven inches long. She struggled a little under the rough treatment, and there was a protesting whimper when we tugged¹⁴; but she did not let out one cry under all the pain.
 
We knew then that Jess had done her share in the fight, and guessed that it was she who in her reckless charge had rolled the porcupine over and given Jock his chance.
 
The doctoring of Jess had delayed us considerably¹⁶, and while we were still busy at it the old chief came up to say that his scouts¹⁷ had returned and reported that there was no tiger to be seen, but that they thought the trap had been sprung. They had not liked to go close up, preferring to observe the spot from a tree some way off.
 
The first question was what to do with Jess. We had no collar or chain, of course, and nothing would induce her to stay behind once Ted started; she would have bitten through ropes and reims in a few minutes, and no kaffir would have faced the job of watching over and checking her. Finally we put her into one of the reed and mud huts, closing the entrance with some raw hides weighted with heavy stones; and off we went.
 
We found the trap sprung and the bait untouched. The spoor was a tiger’s, right enough, and we saw where it had circled suspiciously all round before finally entering the little fenced approach which we had built to shepherd it on to the trap. There each footprint was clear, and it appeared that instead of cautiously creeping right up to the bait and stepping on the setting-plate, it had made a pounce¹⁸ at the bait from about ten feet away, releasing the trap by knocking the spring or by touching¹⁹ the plate with the barrel of its body. The tiger had evidently been nipped, but the body was too big for the teeth to close on, and no doubt the spring it gave on feeling the grip underneath²⁰ set it free with nothing worse than a bad scraping and a tremendous fright. There was plenty of hair and some skin on the teeth of the trap, but very little blood there, and none at all to be found round about.
 
That was almost the worst result we could have had: the tiger was not crippled, nor was it wounded enough to enable us to track it, but must have been so thoroughly²¹ alarmed that it would certainly be extremely nervous and suspicious of everything now, and would probably avoid the neighbourhood for some time to come.
 
The trap was clearly of no further use, but after coming so far for the tiger we were not disposed to give up the hunt without another effort. The natives told us it was quite useless to follow it up as it was a real ‘schelm,’ and by that time would be miles away in some inaccessible²² krans. We determined²³ however to go on, and if we failed to get a trace of the tiger, to put in the day hunting bushbuck or wild pig, both of which were fairly plentiful²⁵.
 
We had not gone more than a few hundred yards when an exclamation from one of the boys made us look round, and we saw Jess on the opposite slope coming along full speed after us with her nose to the trail. She had scratched and bitten her way through the reed and mud wall of the hut, scared the wits out of a couple of boys who had tried to head her off, and raced away after us with a pack of kaffir mongrels yelping²⁶ unnoticed at her heels. She really did not seem much the worse for her wounds, and was—for her—quite demonstrative in her delight at finding us again.
 
In any case there was nothing to be done but to let her come, and we went on once more beating up towards the lair²⁷ in the black krans with the two dogs in the lead.
 
The guides led us down into the bed of one of the mountain streams, and following this up we were soon in the woods where the big trees meeting overhead made it dark and cool. It was difficult in that light to see anything clearly at first, and the considerable undergrowth of shrub²⁸ and creepers and the boulders³⁰ shed from the Berg added to the difficulty and made progress slow. We moved along as much as possible abreast³¹, five or six yards apart, but were often driven by obstacles into the bed of the stream for short distances in order to make headway at all, and although there did not seem to be much chance of finding the tiger at home, we crept along cautiously and noiselessly, talking—when we had to—only in whispers.
 
We were bunched together, preparing to crawl along a rock overhanging a little pool, when the boy in front made a sign and pointed³² with his assegai to the dogs. They had crossed the stream and were walking—very slowly and abreast—near the water’s edge. The rawest of beginners would have needed no explanation. The two stood for a few seconds sniffing³³ at a particular spot and then both together looked steadily³⁴ upstream: there was another pause and they moved very slowly and carefully forward a yard or so and sniffed³⁵ again with their noses almost touching. As they did this the hair on their backs and shoulders began to rise until, as they reached the head of the pool, they were bristling³⁶ like hedgehogs and giving little purring growls³⁷.
 
The guide went over to them while we waited, afraid to move lest the noise of our boots on the stones should betray us. After looking round for a bit he pointed to a spot on the bank where he had found the fresh spoor of the tiger, and picking up something there to show to us he came back to our side. It was a little fragment of whitish skin with white hairs on it. There was no doubt about it then: we were on the fresh spoor of the tiger where it had stopped to drink at the pool and probably to lick the scratches made by the trap; and leaving the bed of the stream it had gone through the thick undergrowth up towards the krans.
 
We were not more than a hundred yards from the krans then, and the track taken by the tiger was not at all an inviting³⁸ one. It was at first merely a narrow tunnel in the undergrowth up the steep hillside, through which we crept in single file with the two dogs a few yards in front; they moved on in the same silent deliberate way, so intent and strung up that they started slightly and instantly looked up in front at the least sound. As the ascent³⁹ became steeper and more rocky, the undergrowth thinned and we were able to spread out into line once more, threading our way through several roughly-parallel game tracks or natural openings and stooping low to watch the dogs and take our cue from them.
 
We were about fifteen yards from the precipitous face of the krans, and had just worked round a huge boulder²⁹ into a space fairly free of bush but cumbered with many big rocks and loose stones, when the dogs stopped and stood quivering and bristling all over, moving their heads slowly about with noses well raised and sniffing persistently⁴⁰. There was something now that interested them more than the spoor: they winded the tiger itself, but could not tell where. No one stirred: we stood watching the dogs and snatching glances right and left among the boulders and their a shady creeper-hidden caves and recesses⁴¹, and as we stood thus, grouped together in breathless silence, an electrifying⁴² snarling⁴³ roar came from the krans above and the spotted⁴⁴ body of the tiger shot like a streak⁴⁵ out of the black mouth of a cave and across our front into the bush; there was a series of crashing bounds, as though a stone rolled from the mountain were leaping through the jungle; and then absolute silence.
 
We explored the den⁴; but there was nothing of interest in it—no remains⁴⁶ of food, no old bones, or other signs of cubs⁴⁷. It seemed to be the retreat of a male tiger—secluded, quiet, and cool. The opening was not visible from any distance, a split-off slab⁴⁸ of rock partly hiding it; but when we stood upon the rock platform we found that almost the whole of the horse-shoe bay in the Berg into which we had descended⁴⁹ was visible, and it was with a “Wow!” of surprise and mortification⁵⁰ that the kraal boys found they could see the kraal itself and their goats and cattle grazing on the slopes and in the valley below.
 
Tigers do not take their kill to their dens⁵¹ unless there are young cubs to be fed; as a rule they feed where they kill, or as near to it as safety permits, and when they have fed their fill they carry off the remainder of the carcase and hide it. Lions, hyenas⁵², and others leave what they cannot eat and return to it for their next feed; but tigers are more provident⁵³ and more cunning, and—being able to climb trees—they are very much more difficult to follow or waylay⁵⁴ by means of their kill. They are not big fellows, rarely exceeding seven feet from nose to tip of tail and 130 pounds in weight; but they are extraordinarily⁵⁵ active and strong, and it is difficult to believe until one has seen the proof of it that they are able to climb the bare trunk of a tree carrying a kill much bigger and heavier than themselves, and hang it safely wedged in some hidden fork out of reach of any other animal. I have repeatedly seen the remains of their victims in the forks of trees; once it was part of a pig, but on the other occasions the remains were of horned animals; the pig was balanced in the fork; the others were hooked in by the heads and horns.
 
A well-known hunter once told me an experience of his illustrating⁵⁶ the strength and habits of tigers. He had shot a young giraffe and carried off as much as he could put on his horse, and hid the rest; but when he returned next morning it had disappeared, and the spoor of a full-grown tiger told him why. He followed the drag mark up to the foot of a big tree and found the remains of the carcase, fully² 300 pounds in weight, in a fork more than twenty feet from the ground.
 
He left it there as a bait and returned again the following morning on the chance of a shot; but the meat had once more been removed and on following up the spoor he found what was left hidden in another tree some two hundred yards away.
 
It would have been waste of time to follow our tiger—he would be on the watch and on the move for hours; so we gave it up at once, and struck across the spurs for another part of the big arena⁵⁷ where pig and bushbuck were known to feed in the mornings. It was slow and difficult work, as the bush was very dense⁵⁸ and the ground rough. The place was riddled⁵⁹ with game tracks, and we saw spoor of koodoo and eland several times, and tracks innumerable of wild pig, rietbuck, bushbuck, and duiker. But there was more than spoor: a dozen times we heard the crash of startled animals through the reeds or bush only a few yards away without being able to see a thing.
 
We had nearly reached the kloof we were aiming for when we had the good luck to get a bushbuck in a very unexpected way. We had worked our way out of a particularly dense patch of bush and brambles into a corner of the woods and were resting on the mossy ground in the shade of the big trees when the sound of clattering⁶¹ stones a good way off made us start up again and grab our rifles; and presently we saw, outlined against the band of light which marked the edge of the timber, a buck²⁴ charging down towards us. Three of us fired together, and the buck rolled over within a few yards of where we stood.
 
We were then in a ‘dead end’ up against the precipitous face of the Berg where there was no road or path other than game tracks, and where no human being ever went except for the purpose of hunting. We knew there was no one else shooting there, and it puzzled us considerably to think what had scared the bushbuck; for the animal had certainly been startled and perhaps chased; the pace, the noise it made, and the blind recklessness of its dash, all showed that. The only explanation we could think of was that the tiger, in making a circuit along the slopes of the Berg to get away from us, must have put the buck up and driven it down on to us in the woods below, and if that were so, the reports of our rifles must have made him think that he was never going to get rid of us.
&n............