e surveyor, "we've managed to give the tribe's young men
and elders a good fright to-day, anyhow. My word! but their faces were a
picture as we lovingly dwelt on the pains and penalties awaiting them
for their share in their _tohunga's_ outrage on your brother. I'll tell
you what it is, Jervois. Horoeka has to keep in hiding for his own
sake, and these beggars will have their hands so full, with a nice
little charge like this to meet, that they won't care to make trouble
for us when we come to the survey of the Ngotu block."

"It's an ill wind that blows nobody good," laughed Hugh. "But, all the
same, Dick may be excused for thinking that your unobstructed survey has
been dearly bought with the most horrid experience he is likely ever to
have in his life."

VI

SOME PANTHER STORIES

The pages of literature devoted to sport and the hunting of wild game
teem with stories and instances of occasions when the hunted, driven to
desperation and enraged to ferocity by wounds, turns, and itself becomes
the hunter and the avenger of its own hurts.

Of all wild animals perhaps the most vindictive, the most cunning, and
the most dangerous to hunt is the panther; indeed, nine out of ten who
have had experience of shooting in all parts of the world will concede
that the pursuit of these animals is really more fraught with danger and
hazard than that of even the tiger, lion, and elephant; and the
following is one of many instances, of yearly occurrence, of the man
behind the rifle not having it all his own way when drawn in actual
combat against the denizens of the jungles.

It was drawing on towards the hot weather when my friend Blake, who had
been very seedy, thought that I might try to get a few days' leave and
join him in a small shooting expedition into the jungles of southern
India, where he was sure he would recover his lost strength and
vitality, and so face the coming hot weather with a fair amount of
equanimity.

The necessary leave being forthcoming, we consulted maps, arranged ways
and means for a fortnight's camp--always a considerable thing in
India--and, accompanied by two Sikhs and a Rajput orderly, with horses,
guns, rifles, and dogs galore, after a day's journey in the train
reached the place from whence the remainder of our journey was to be
done by road.

Our destination was a place called Bokeir, and constituted what is known
in India as a _jargir_, that is a tract of land which, together with t