The _dâk_ bungalow at Madpur Duar was soon reached, a single-storied building with a couple of trees shading the well behind it and a group of elephants and their _mahouts_. On the verandah Benson and his daughter were standing, the girl dressed in a khaki drill coat and skirt over breeches and soft leather gaiters, and waving a welcome to Badshah's riders.
After a hurried breakfast the latter were ready to start for the day's sport. By then a line of ten female elephants, the tallest carrying a _howdah_, the rest only their pads, was drawn up before the bungalow; and at a word from their _mahouts_ their trunks went up in the air and the animals trumpeted in salute as the party came out on the verandah.
"We borrowed Mr. Carter's and the Settlement Officer's elephants for the beat," said Miss Benson, as, wearing a big pith sunhat and carrying a double-barrelled .400 cordite rifle, she led the way down the verandah steps.
It had been arranged that she was to take Wargrave with her in her _howdah_, while her father accompanied Colonel Dermot on Badshah. Her big elephant knelt down and a ladder was laid against its side, up which she climbed, followed by the subaltern. When all were mounted she led the way across the plain. Although the ground was everywhere level and just there uncultivated the elephants tailed off in single file as is the habit of their kind, wild or domesticated, each stepping with precise care into the footprints of the one in front of it. Here in the Plains the heat was intense; and Wargrave, shading his eyes from the blinding glare, thought enviously of the coolness up in the mountains that he had left. As they moved along Muriel explained to him how the beat was to be conducted.
Where the southern fringe of the Terai Jungle borders the cultivated country it is a favourite haunt of tigers, which from its shelter carry on war against the farmers' cattle. Creeping down the ravines seaming the soft soil and worn by the streams that flow through the forest from the hills they pull down the cows grazing or coming to drink in the _nullahs_, which are filled with small trees and scrubs affording good cover. A tiger, when it has killed, drags the carcase of its prey into shade near water, eats a hearty meal of about eighty pounds of flesh, drinks and then sleeps until it is ready to feed again. If disturbed it retreats up the ravine to the forest.