“And you thought it was the tiger’s eye?”
“You wait. I seed a firefly making circles of flame against the blackness—and I cotched him gently—so’s not to spoil his lantern. I fixed him in the bark of a tree that stood near the den—and two others I fixed in line—one above, one below. The top was three feet above the ground, the middle was two and a half, and the bottom one a foot high. Next thing I threw that stink-cat in the den, and the smell of him came out thick, covering up all taint of a man. Then I settled down opposite the tree with the gun fixed on the little spark where I’d fixed the middle fly. I reckoned when the ole chap came home and smelt that cat he’d stand in disgust—and as the smell would strike him just by the tree his body would blot out the flies and give me a mark.”
“And he didn’t come back that way?”
“He did that, as it was the easiest way; but before he came the feeling grew in me that he was just behind watching me where I lay. I tell you, sonny, that long watch in the stillness of the dark, with a drop of water minute by minute falling into a little pool, and a sort of queer stirring noise among the trees, gave me the ague. But he came at last. It may have been three, or two o’clock; but without a sound he was there before me. My eyes had grown tired of watching those three dots of fire, and I’d been shutting them tight for a spell every now and again, and when I opened them the last time I saw the light was there, but altered. I looked away a second, then back, and there was three lights; but two of ’em were close together, and bigger. Jimminy! it was the ole man himself looking at me. I pulled the trigger, and the gun flew outer my hands. Then I rolled over and over, with a roaring, scuffling, and screaming in my ears as ef the gun had woke a whole crowd of devils and brought them howling outer the rocks. I rolled against a tree, and I was up it before I knew where I was, an’ all the time there was that scuffling an’ growlin’ and awful screamin’ going on down below. Bymby it got weaker and weaker, until it died off in gurglings and deep breathing, and by the grey light of the morning there was the two of ’em dead, the black tiger and the ole man baboon. The baboon had got his two long teeth in the big throat, and there he had held while the tiger with his hind claws raked the stomach clean out of him.”
“And where did your bullet strike?”
“It struck the tree, and smashed the top firefly to smithereens. The other two had dropped off.”
“Then you didn’t kill the tiger?”
“I reckon I did; at any rate, I’ve got his skin and the skull of the ole baboon. He was the biggest tiger you ever see, and old as the hills, with his teeth worn down. I’m sorry for the baboon, but I’m glad he was there.”
I have reason to believe that Uncle Abe maligned himself for the sake of the yarn. On examining the tiger’s skin subsequently, I found no traces of the baboon’s teeth, but exactly between the eyes was a bullet-hole. The old man had held his gun straight in the dark kloof.