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stood dumfounded as he made out the great Indian tiger, Calcutta Tom, that "had cost six thousand dollars to cage after it had killed five men."

The encounter was so unlooked for that Ralph stood transfixed for a second or two.

The escaped animal could not have been long in the switch house, otherwise Knight or others would have discovered it. It had escaped before daybreak that morning. Since then it must have been in hiding around the depot yards.

About twenty feet away from the switch tower were some open vault-like recesses fitting into a brick abutment. This inclined from the depot baggage room. Up and down this, baggage was run on trucks. It was possible that for a time the tiger had lurked in some of these dark recesses, transferring itself to the lower tower room within the last fifteen minutes.

Calcutta Tom was a formidable-looking beast of enormous size. Ralph noticed, however, that Rh