A few hours before dawn I was awakened by our dog barking angrily, yet with a peculiar note showing fear and disdain. I could also hear him leaping up and down in one spot near the very door of our house. Instead of answering barks, the neighboring dogs gave forth long and deep howls. There was such a noise and mooing of the cows in the corral that it seemed to me they must be trying to stamp or hook each other to death.

Father and mother were already up, and I heard father's deep command: "Get me a lantern."

As soon as the match was lit I saw him as he stood in his night shirt but with his fur hat on his head and a rifle in his hand. As soon as the lantern had been lit, he seized it and rushed to the door, putting on his overcoat as he ran. I arose hastily, put on my fur coat, grabbed the hatchet lying by the stove, and followed just as he cheered on the dog who ran before him to the corral, barking loudly.

As I came near I saw my father thrust his rifle hastily between two fence posts. A second later came a short flash and the report of the gun. But my father's curses showed that he had failed to hit the mark. At the same time, I heard a roar so terrible in its fury and strength and hate that I trembled so as to be hardly able to stand. Surely, I thought, a beast who can produce such a roar can swallow not only one but several cows at once. How brave my father seemed to me as, still muttering, he reloaded his old gun with another cartridge. But here something happened. The great beast holding a cow in his teeth as a cat does a mouse, jumped over the seven-foot fence of the corral and ran off into the darkness, pursued by our wolf hound. With what sounded like the Cossack war cry, father followed, while I, too, made my way some distance after, this distance gradually increasing on the snow covered trail.

We continued in this fashion for perhaps five minutes, when the dog changed his ferocious barking to a pitiful whine and a new shot rang out into the air, followed by a short roar. I stopped in the middle of the road, unable to go a step further.

I don't know how long I stood there, but it was until I heard Manjur returning. I could just make him out but oh, in what a pitiful condition! He was limping so badly that at times he simply dragged his body along the ground. Tears sprang to my eyes as I heard his cries and hurried toward him intending to pat him on the head. But when I tried to do so, my hand found itself covered with a warm sticky fluid which I knew to be blood. I could feel that his skin was torn, one ear gone, and his left front leg broken.

Helping the dog all I could, I returned crying to the house. As I stepped into the room covered with Manjur's blood, my sister Katia gave a scream, while my mother with terror written in her eyes, exclaimed: "What's happened to you? Where is your father?"

"I don't know," I answered; "but see what the frightful tiger did to poor Manjur."

Mother, somewhat relieved, but still trembling, now came up and helped me apply greased bandages to the torn ear and broken skin of the faithful dog.

While we were doing this, father returned. Slowly he took off his hat, then his heavy coat, and in reply to my mother's mute questioning look, said: "I believe that I must have hit him for he dropped the cow,—yet he got away."

"Is she alive?" asked my mother with anxiety.

My father shook his head. "Her neck is entirely broken," he said, adding, "I hardly think he'll return to-night. To-morrow we'll get him, for he's probably hungry and will hang around." Then he ordered me and my terrified sister to go to bed in order to get up early, and busied himself with poor Manjur.

Long after the light was extinguished, I lay awake thinking of the tiger, my father's courage, my mother's anxiety, the wounded dog, and the dear cow. For some time, too, I could hear the low voices of my father and mother discussing the preparations for the morrow. One name, that of Tolochkin, was mentioned several times. I knew of this Tolochkin as a wonderful hunter of tigers. I had never seen him, however, for he lived more than forty miles away, and was peculiar in his habits, keeping much to himself.