ers were beyond his reach. So he gave that one leap toward
them, and tore up the ground instead, as he could not tear up the men;
then he agreed to lie down and be truly dead.

The three hunters got down from their elephants and came to the den.
They found that one of the last bullets had passed right through the
tiger's body, and had killed the cub he was trying to carry to safety.
The hunters were sorry that the cub had been killed. So they searched
for the first cub, which the tiger had hidden behind the thicket. They
found the cub and took it with them.

[Illustration: Tiger Protecting his Cub]

The hunters mounted their elephants and came back to their tent, where
they had been staying. They put a dog's steel collar around the neck
of the cub, and tied him up to the tent post by a chain. The cub was so
frightened and helpless that it lay down on the ground and was very
quiet. The three men sat down in the tent and chatted for a while.

Suddenly they heard a terrible roar outside. They snatched up their
guns, but they could not tell from which side the roar came--just as
when you hear a terrible clap of thunder close by, you cannot tell from
which side the thunder comes. And hearing this roar, the cub jumped up
and yelped in answer; and he tugged at his chain furiously. He had
become a little tiger in his nature.

Suddenly a huge yellow form shot into the tent. It was a tigress. She
seized the cub's collar in her mouth, and snapped the chain with a tug,
like a piece of thread. The next second she leaped out of the tent with
the cub, and vanished. And the three men had not had time to aim a gun.
None of them really wished to.

Yes, she was the mother of the cub. When she had returned home from
dinner, she had found her home broken up--her husband killed, one of her
children killed, and the other child stolen. So, all that she could do
was to regain her lost child by tracing it by its scent.

This she did. She regained her cub even by facing the same guns that had
killed her husband. For a tigress mother, like any other mother in the
jungle, will face death to save her child.

_The Tiger Family's Lost Dinner_

Now I shall tell you another true story. It will show you what sort of a
husband and father in everyday life a tiger is.

Near a jungle there was a river. At a special place in the river there
was a bend. It was a good place for fishing, as the water there had
plenty of fish.

One afternoon two me