With his hands full of Rock-jay eggs, and his rifle hugged against his body, there wasn’t much he could do to deflect the imminent attack. In that instant he knew he had been outmaneuvered. As he squeezed past a large boulder which blocked most of the riverbed, something in his peripheral vision gave him pause: something orange and black, with a predator’s eyes, poised behind the boulder and ready to pounce. He continued briskly along the sand, hoping to make it to the hilltop before the tigress finished her buffalo feast.

He used some moss to wrap them up, and carried the eggs delicately against his belly with his rifle crossed over his chest. As an amateur oölogist, or egg collector, Corbett could not pass up these unusual specimens. As he rounded the hill in a dry riverbed his pace wasn’t so hard as to shut out all distraction: in a shallow depression there rested a pair of Rock-jay eggs. He set off at a quick pace, anticipating that the tigress would observe his departure and take the opportunity to prey upon the buffalo. Even if his long-range shot only managed to wound the man-eating tigress, he would at least be left with a blood-trail to track, and therefore end his months-long hunt. It would be a shot of over two hundred yards, but over the years he had felled many a beast from such distances. His intent was to circle behind the nearby hill, climb to the top, and give watch to the grove below. If the tigress took the bait she would be able to kill the animal, but would be unable to drag it off. He led a buffalo into the grove, and tied it up securely as it grazed. He opted to lay one last trap for his adversary before the sunlight failed.

As the afternoon waned, however, Corbett decided that she was too canny to try the same trick twice. The Chowgrath Tigress had already sneaked up on him once in this grove, and he tried to give her the chance to do so again. Jim leaned against the rocky slope of a nearby hill and lit a cigarette. The tigress that stalked him was already credited with at least sixty-four human kills, and Corbett hoped that he was targeted to be next. A cool breeze blew over the lush Indian forest.

The Air Killer by James Corbett