CHAPTER III.
The shot, however, was a poor one.
The bullet struck the tiger, wounding him slightly, but not enough to disable him.

Naturally it added to the fury of the beast, and really increased the peril of the people within the humble home, against whom the brute seemed to have formed a strong and curious antipathy.
He wheeled about, leaped the fence behind him, galloped a number of paces, and then paused abruptly, with his head up, and stared at the building, as if trying to learn the point whence the shot came, that he might punish the offenders.
"Gracious!" exclaimed Jim Travers, "he's going to jump up here and eat us up! Let's run." "Where'll we run ?" was the sensible question of Tom.

"I'd load up again, but the powder and bullets are down-stairs, and before I could do it he'd be on us, if he means to jump into this window." The halt of the tiger was only momentary.

He trotted round to the rear of the house, vanishing from sight for the moment.
A brilliant idea struck Jim Travers.
"I can do better than that, Tom," he called out, clattering down-stairs.
"Come with me, and I'll show you." "Are you going to try to look him in the eye ?" asked Tom, following after him, and scarcely less excited than he.

"It won't work." But the other lad paid no attention to the inquiry, so flurried was he over his new scheme for frightening off the dreaded beast.
The closing of the shutters on the lower floor, as we have explained, cast it in deep shadow.