his den in the jungle. The den was just a
hollow in the ground under a large tree. The tiger dumped the man into
the hollow. The man thought his end had now come. He could not escape
from right in front of the tiger's eyes. And he thought that the tiger
would start eating him at once. Even though he was really alive, the
tiger would eat him just the same.

But, to his surprise, the tiger did not start eating him at once.
Instead, the tiger looked around, and gave a purr, and then a growl.
What did that mean? The man could not tell.

Then the tiger just flung upon the man some of the sand from the side of
the hollow. The man understood _that_: the tiger was trying to hide or
_cache_ his food--as some wild animals do.

But luckily the tiger only flung the sand loosely over the man, just
enough to cover him; he did not quite bury the man; or else the man
might have been smothered. Then the tiger ran off into the jungle.

The man was puzzled to know what the tiger meant by that. But you may be
sure the man did not wait to work out the puzzle in his mind. Instead,
he jumped up from the hollow. Here was his chance to escape!

But he was afraid to run far; for the tiger might return at any moment
and catch him again. So the man just climbed up the tree under which
the den was. And he went up the tree as high as he could, and hid
himself among the leaves.

After a while he heard a sound below, at a little distance. He looked
down and saw the tiger returning. But now there was a tigress with him,
and two cubs.

Then the man understood the puzzle. When the tiger had brought home the
dinner, he had found that his wife and children were out. So he waited a
while; and as they still did not come home, he first looked around for
them, and then he gave a loud _call_ to his family to come to dinner.
That was the purr and growl he gave.

As they still did not come home, the tiger just hid the dinner to keep
it safe, and then he went out to _fetch_ his family home to dinner.

But when he did fetch them, the dinner had run away! Then the tiger
family set up such a wail and lament over the lost dinner!

"I felt quite sorry for them," said the man up in the tree, afterward.
"They kept up the wailing and growling and lamenting for a long time.
Only, as it was _I_ who was to have been the tigers' dinner, I wasn't so
very sorry that the dinner had escaped!"

Meanwhile, the other man who had been fishing with him had run to the
near