So, beating for one with elephants here, the sportsmen place themselves on their _howdah_-bearing animals between the jungle and the spot where the tiger is known to be lying up, and the beater elephants enter the scrub from the far side and shepherd him gently towards the guns.
Pointing to a distant line of tree-tops showing above the level plain she said:
"There is the _nullah_ in which, about a mile farther on, a cow was killed yesterday. I hope the tiger is still lying up in it. We'll soon see."
They reached the ravine, which was twenty or thirty feet deep and contained a little stream flowing through tangled scrub, and moved along parallel to it and about a couple of hundred yards away. Presently the girl pointed to a tall tree growing in it and a quarter of a mile ahead of them. Its upper branches were bending under the weight of numbers of foul-looking bald-headed vultures, squawking, huddled together, jostling each other on their perches and pecking angrily at their neighbours with irritable cries. Some circled in the air and occasionally swooped down towards the ground only to rocket up again affrightedly to the sky; for the tiger lay by its kill and resented the approach of any daring bird that aspired to share the feast. Muriel hurriedly explained how the conduct of the birds indicated the beast's presence.
"If he were not there they'd be down tearing the carcase to pieces," she said, as she held up her hand and halted the file behind her.
"The beater elephants had better stop here, Colonel," she called out to Dermot. "There is a way down and across the _nullah_, by which you can take Badshah to the far side. We will remain on this."
The Political Officer, who had seen and realised the significance of the vultures, waved his hand and moved off at once. Muriel called up the _mahouts_ and bade them enter the ravine and begin the beat in about ten minutes, then told her driver to go on. Half a mile beyond the tree she ordered him to halt and take up a position close to the edge of the _nullah_, into which they could look down. Below them the bottom was clear of scrub which ended fifty yards away. Dermot stopped opposite; and both elephants were turned to face towards the spot where the tiger was judged to be.