Three or four times the reckless trackers returned, most truthfully
saying that the beast was mangy, undersized - a tigress worn with
nursing, or a broken-toothed old male - and Bukta would curb young
Chinn's impatience.
At last, a noble animal was marked down - a ten-foot cattle-killer
with a huge roll of loose skin along the belly, glossy-hided,
full-frilled about the neck, whiskered, frisky, and young. He
had slain a man in pure sport, they said.
"Let him be fed," quoth Bukta, and the villagers dutifully drove
out a cow to amuse him, that he might lie up near by.
Princes and potentates have taken ship to India and spent great
moneys for the mere glimpse of beasts one-half as fine as this
of Bukta's.
"It is not good," said he to the Colonel, when he asked for
shooting-leave, "that my Colonel's son who may be - that my
Colonel's son should lose his maidenhead on any small jungle
beast. That may come after. I have waited long for this which
is a tiger. He has come in from the Mair country. In seven days
we will return with the skin."
The mess gnashed their teeth enviously. Bukta, had he chosen,
might have invited them all.
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