O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 | Page 9

gray man in the howdah. The latter passed on to his estate,
and some of the villagers went back to their women and their thatch
huts. But still Little Shikara stood motionless--and it wasn't until the
thought suddenly came to him that possibly the beaters had already
gathered and were telling the story of the kill that with startling
suddenness he raced back through the gates to the village.
Yes, the beaters had assembled in a circle under a tree, and most of the
villagers had gathered to hear the story. He slipped in among them, and
listened with both outstanding little ears. Warwick Sahib had
dismounted from his elephant as usual, the beaters said, and with but
one attendant had advanced up the bed of a dry creek. This was quite
like Warwick Sahib, and Little Shikara felt himself tingling again.
Other hunters, particularly many of the rich sahibs from across the sea,
shot their tigers from the security of the howdah; but this wasn't
Warwick's way of doing. The male tiger had risen snarling from his lair,
and had been felled at the first shot.
Most of the villagers had supposed that the story would end at this

point. Warwick Sahib's tiger hunts were usually just such simple and
expeditious affairs. The gun would lift to his shoulder, the quiet eyes
would glance along the barrel--and the tiger, whether charging or
standing still--would speedily die. But to-day there had been a curious
epilogue. Just as the beaters had started toward the fallen animal, and
the white Heaven-born's cigarette-case was open in his hand, Nahara,
Nahar's great, tawny mate, had suddenly sprung forth from the bamboo
thickets.
She drove straight to the nearest of the beaters. There was no time
whatever for Warwick to take aim. His rifle leaped, like a live thing, in
his arms, but not one of the horrified beaters had seen his eyes lower to
the sights. Yet the bullet went home--they could tell by the way the
tiger flashed to her breast in the grass.
Yet she was only wounded. One of the beaters, starting, had permitted a
bough of a tree to whip Warwick in the face, and the blow had
disturbed what little aim he had. It was almost a miracle that he had hit
the great cat at all. At once the thickets had closed around her, and the
beaters had been unable to drive her forth again.
The circle was silent thereafter. They seemed to be waiting for Khusru,
one of the head men of the village, to give his opinion. He knew more
about the wild animals than any mature native in the assembly, and his
comments on the hunting stories were usually worth hearing.
"We will not be in the honoured service of the Protector of the Poor at
this time a year from now," he said.
They all waited tensely. Shikara shivered. "Speak, Khusru," they urged
him.
"Warwick Sahib will go again to the jungles--and Nahara will be
waiting. She owes two debts. One is the killing of her mate--and ye
know that these two tigers have been long and faithful mates. Do ye
think she will let that debt go unpaid? She will also avenge her own
wound."

"Perhaps she will die of bleeding," one of the others suggested.
"Nay, or ye would have found her this afternoon. Ye know that it is the
wounded tiger that is most to be feared. One day, and he will go forth
in pursuit of her again; and then ye will not see him riding back so
grandly on his elephant. Perhaps she will come here, to carry away our
children."
Again Shikara tingled--hoping that Nahara would at least come close
enough to cause excitement. And that night, too happy to keep silent,
he told his mother of Warwick Sahib's smile. "And some time I--I,
thine own son," he said as sleepiness came upon him, "will be a killer
of tigers, even as Warwick Sahib."
"Little sparrow-hawk," his mother laughed at him. "Little one of
mighty words, only the great sahibs that come from afar, and Warwick
Sahib himself, may hunt the tiger, so how canst thou, little worthless?"
"I will soon be grown," he persisted, "and I--I, too--will some time
return with such a tiger-skin as the great Heaven-born brought this
afternoon." Little Shikara was very sleepy, and he was telling his
dreams much more frankly than was his wont. "And the village folk
will come out to meet me with shoutings, and I will tell them of the
shot--in the circle under the tree."
"And where, little hawk, wilt thou procure thine elephants, and such
rupees as are needed?"
"Warwick Sahib shoots from the ground--and so will I. And sometimes
he goes forth with only one attendant--and I will