Nevertheless, I should have put mental question-marks after some of the big game stories I heard while I was in Indo-China had I not been convinced of the credibility of those who told them. Only a few days before our arrival at Saigon, for example, an American engaged in business in that city set out one morning before daybreak, in a small car, for the paddy-fields, where there is excellent bird-shooting in the early dawn. The car, which, owing to the intense heat, had no wind-shield, was driven by the Annamite chauffeur, the American, a double-barrel loaded with bird-shot across his knees, sitting beside him on the front seat. Rounding a turn in the jungle road at thirty miles an hour, the twin beams of light from the lamps fell on a tiger, which, dazzled and bewildered by the on-coming glare, crouched snarling in the middle of the highway. There was no time to stop the car, and, as the jungle came to the very edge of the narrow road, there was no way to avoid the animal, which, just as the car was upon it, gathered itself and sprang. It landed on the hood with all four feet, its snarling face so close to the men that they could feel its breath. The American, thrusting the muzzle of his weapon into the furry neck of the great cat, let go with both barrels, blowing away the beast's throat and jugular vein and killing it instantly. With the aid of his badly frightened driver, he bundled the great striped carcass into the tonneau of the car and imperturbably continued on his bird-shooting expedition. Some people seem to have a monopoly of luck.
Though Saigon and Pnom-Penh do not possess the facilities for equipping shooting expeditions afforded by Mombasa or Nairobi, and though in Indo-China there are no professional European guides, such as the late Major Cunninghame; the elaborate and costly outfits customary in East Africa, with their mile-long trains of bearers, are as unnecessary as they are unknown. The arrangements for a tiger hunt in Indo-China are scarcely more elaborate and certainly no more expensive, than for a moose hunt in Maine. A dependable native _shikari_ who knows the country, a cook, half-a-dozen coolies, a sturdy riding-pony, two or three pack-animals, a tent and food, that is all you need. With such an outfit, particularly in a region so thick with game as, say, the Dalat Plateau, in Annam, the hunter should get a shot at a tiger before he has been forty-eight hours in the bush. In a clearing in a jungle known to be frequented by tigers, the carcass of a bullock, or, if that is unavailable, of a pig, is fastened securely to a stake and left there until it smells to high heaven. When its odor is of sufficient potency to reach the nostrils of the tiger, the hunter takes up his position in the edge of the clearing, or on a platform built in a tree if he believes in Safety First. For investigating the kill the tiger usually chooses the dimness of the early dawn or the semi-darkness which precedes nightfall. With no warning save a faint rustle in the undergrowth a lean and tawny form slithers on padded feet across the open--and the man behind the rifle has his chance. I have found, however, that even in tiger lands, tigers are by no means as plentiful as one's imagination paints them at home. It is easy to be a big-game hunter on the hearth-rug.