part0012

"Nonsense, Junie", Neville Gardner snapped, "why, the very thought is absurd. Fancy riding about with a man-eater around! Have you forgotten what happened to poor Mr. Wyatt in the Nandyal district? At Diguvametta? Of course you were only a little girl then, about three or four years old. But my, you did have beautiful ringlets! How your poor mother used to admire them!" he paused reminiscently.

The forests around the Greystone plantation bordered the Silent Valley Reserve, a vast area of almost impenetrable jungle. There had been a transfer of Forest Rangers and Neville Gardner had taken charge from his predecessor hardly a month ago. Gardner was an Anglo-Indian and had spent twenty-five years in the Forest Department. He was a widower, Mrs. Gardner having died five years previously. Thereafter he had become solely dependent on his only daughter, June, now a girl of twenty-one. Unlike her father, who was of middle height and stockily built with a sallow complexion, drooping moustache; and unkempt black hair that he rarely combed, June was slim and tall, her brown skin mellowed by the sun into a glowing coppery hue. She had tantalizingly arched lips and flashing hazel eyes between curving black lashes. Dark silky hair hung loosely about her shoulders, helping to accentuate her strikingly oval face. A dimpled chin pronounced the charming smile she usually wore.

The Ranger's house was a low white-washed brick building crowned by a sloping roof of old-fashioned, half-round tiles, in keeping with the style of all Government quarters in South India. It had three rooms, a long front verandah, a bathroom, and attached kitchen, and was sparsely furnished.

His wife's memory was deeply cherished by Neville Gardner. She had been a good companion and had accompanied him into every jungle in which he had been stationed from time to time. But the toll of malaria—the scourge of the Indian forests—had slowly undermined her strength and she had fallen an easy victim to cholera when that epidemic suddenly attacked her.

June had grown into a hardy girl, possessing a constitution like her father's, immune to the malarial parasite. Moreover, as was most unusual for one of her sex, she loved the jungle. She was a good shot with her .3006 Springfield rifle and knew all about the forest and its fauna. Range Officers are provided with horses by the Forest Department as part of their necessary equipment, and the only means of transportation to cover their long beats to the distant areas for which they are responsible.

Neville Gardner would leave his quarters on horseback early in the morning on inspection duty, carrying a tiffin-carrier of curry and rice that served as his lunch and a bottle of coffee. June had to get up at four o'clock every morning to prepare this meal.

The Gardners observed Sunday as an off day from work and June looked forward to it. She would finish her cooking overnight and dawn would find her in the jungle with her rifle on her father's horse. She loved wild animals and never shot anything that was harmless, carrying the weapon only for protection.

This was the kind of life June had been accustomed to at Chedleth, in Malabar, the last headquarters at which her father had been stationed. Situated in the Nilgiri-Wynaad, it had been a delightful spot, packed with game, and June had loved the beautiful jungle of towering evergreen trees and lofty swaying bamboo stems that clothed the forests of that area. Now, with her father's transfer, she very much resented the circumstances that curbed her usual Sunday morning routine of riding in the jungle.

For the Forest Guards had informed Gardner of the presence of a man-eating tiger in the vicinity. To go out alone on horse-back would be a hazardous undertaking and her father had forbidden her from doing so as soon as the news had been told to him. He himself went on his rounds armed with his Paradox gun. Because of the tiger's presence, work in the area had slowed down considerably, and contractors found it very difficult to procure labour for their felling and other duties.

The Ranger continued his narration. "Well, Mr. Wyatt was one of those officers recruited directly in England. Came out as District Forest Officer.” He paused for a moment, then continued. "There was a man-eater at Diguvametta. It had eaten some six or seven of the Chenchu tribesmen living in the area. I doubt this young fellow had even seen a tiger before.

"One morning he mounted his horse and rode into the jungle. It was after 9 o'clock. I advised him not to go alone, but he replied that he wanted to exercise the animal. He said no tiger would come out in any case as the sun was up. In fact, it was a pretty hot day.

"About an hour later the horse galloped back. Its haunches were scored by the talons of a tiger and Wyatt was not on its back. We re-tracked in the direction from where it had come by following its hoof-marks and arrived at a spot where the jungle path Wyatt had been riding along passed through a nullah. That was where the tiger had been waiting for him. It had jumped from a bank on to the horse's back and had pulled him out of the saddle. In the sand were many marks—the stamping hoof-prints of the horse, the pugs of a large male tiger, and a drag mark that we knew had been made by Wyatt's boot as it trailed along the ground while the tiger carried him away. Just a little further on, we found blood. At first a few drops, and then more.

"There were four of us who had turned out; three Guards and myself. I was only a Forester in those days. I had brought my Paradox along with me—the same gun I have now. We followed the blood trail as quickly as we could, consistent with caution, hoping that by some stroke of luck we might be in time to save poor Wyatt’s life. I remember we were terribly afraid.”

"We had gone about a furlong when we caught sight of something white through the undergrowth. It was Wyatt alright. But he was dead. The tiger had ripped off his clothes and eaten a good part of him. A gruesome sight if ever there was one, and I can still see it in my mind's eye even as I talk to you. That's what comes of going riding in a jungle where there's a man-eater, and that's what'll happen to you".

Neville Gardner brought his narrative to an end with a note of finality. His daughter could not avoid an involuntary shudder as she heard the story. But after all—June was June, and a most determined young woman. Whatever fear she might feel inside, she was certainly not going to show it to her father or anyone else. Her firmly pointed little chin took on a grim setting in the finely chiseled oval countenance when she spoke the next words with the air of a person bringing a long-drawn-out argument to a conclusion.

"As you say, Dad, he had just come from England. But I shall be careful and will keep to the fire-lines and not follow any of the narrow trails. I have my .3006 and I'm no greenhorn!"

"The .3006 won't save you, as man-eaters don't advertise their presence", countered her father. "He'll be on you in a jiffy".

"No, no, Dad; have no fear. I'll look after myself". June's voice had the well-known resolute note in it and her father had long ago resigned himself to the fact that, when the young lady made up her mind, it was useless to try to get her to change. Gardner loved his daughter intensely.

She was all that remained to him in this life. And because of that he had come to spoil her by giving in to her from young. So it was that, early next morning June rode into the jungle on her father's horse, her .3006 rifle across her back, the sling passing over the left shoulder and crossing her chest to the right, the leather strap taut between her breasts and accentuating their pointed loveliness within the khaki shirt she was wearing.