Forest are the beauty that mother earth has provided us with. The raw beauty can we heart warming and along with it, it can even freeze our hearts. So we, the SSS gang are back with a Lovely, fierce, and adventurous story to impress the readers.
In the evening, we hired two elephants. In each we had four people and the one who aided us to move the big animal. I didn't face much difficulty in getting on it. I sat at a position from which it would be difficult to get off. We were much away from the ground. I was accompanied by Sonia, Snigdha and Snigdha's father. Sonia had sat on the extreme end.
We started moving. The same forest had a different look every direction. Never did we feel bored. We said the man to take us to a place where we can see the majestic Tiger. He took us but said that it was rare for people to get to see it, "There is a lot of poaching. The fellow animals are stabbed, shot and sold." We were enjoying the scenary on every side. We went inside the dense forest. There was a path made by the regular movement of elephants and cars. We went over that. Green trees now formed a canopy overhead and the ground was covered with green and brown shrubs. We could only hear the sound of birds overhead which we could not spot, and the movement of the elephant which we rode.
We were enjoying the blissful solitude when suddenly we heard the sound of gunshot. Many birds flew away making a lot of noise. The elephant rider said quickly that the elephant might get scared and try to run and so he told us to hold tightly. But Sonia requested to stop it. The elephant was not stopping. It was moving vigorously with thudded steps. Sonia urged impatiently to stop it. On getting no attention, she jumped from the elephant. The jump from a 2 metre high elephant must have injured her seriously. Everyone shout as all were scared. Then she started running towards the sound of the gun. On such a sudden call, the elephant was astonished and it stopped. The other elephant stopped too. We all got down hurringly but carefully. Then we looked at each other and started running following Sonia. Snigdha's father was at the front and we were behind him. My father agreed to take the rest back to the resort.
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We ran and ran but were unable to catch up with Sonia. Then we came to place beyond which we could not go. At one far corner, there was Sonia sitting. She had been injured as something hard had hit her forehead which was bleeding. In front of her was a shot gun. She was holding it tightly. When we pulled her up, she gave it to me to keep it safely. We hurriedly took her home. The only way to return was again the elephant and we had to come by it. Returning, we first aided her and then took her to the only local doctor. By the time we returned, it was about 7:30 p.m. She was stable now. We asked her how she was injured. With a cup of tea in hand, she started narrating, "I jumped down from the elephant and started running. When I reached the spot I found that a deer was killed. On seeing me the killer started to run. I took up a stone and threw it towards them. It struck one's knee. When they found I was following them, they ran away and the man whom I had injured, hit me with the shot gun on my head. I fell down on the ground. But I had seen two faces. One was Alok and the other one was a man of the 'old men group' "
My father said, "So both of the teams are criminals. Why don't we tell it to the forest department?" Sonia said, "Basically what we need is proof...." Sonia's mother interrupted, "And you will go nowhere to find proof." Everyone agreed with her.
Then she said that she wanted rest. Everyone was going out when she called me and Snigdha and said, "We have a plan. Tomorrow, we will catch the killer. In the morning... I am sure they will go from the East side. I heard that the East side has more tigers and obviously it will be the desire for them to catch a tiger before they leave...."
I asked, "How do you know that they are leaving?"
Sonia just smiled. Snigdha said, "Moreover, your mother will not let you go anywhere."
Sonia said, "yesss... I will have to do something about that. Another thing, tomorrow, you two will keep an eye upon the 'old men group' and be sure to trap them and leave them at no chance. Okay?"
We said together, "Okay!"
Sonia again told us, "And I will be after, Alok, Ajay, Ram and Raj. Probably, they will not be far. We will go together till a certain path and then divide. Do another thing. Call my mother here. And.... We'll not sleep here today."
We told her mother to meet her. She told her mother that, that room was near the road and noisy. So she desires to sleep in the other room.
Before going to bed, Sonia instructed us many things. She told to carry a rope, a pair scissors and a knife. Snigdha had a knife with her and I had scissors. We asked, "What protection will you take?"
She replied, "A shot gun!" We were surprised as she was not at all skilled in aiming nor at killing but she told us not to worry.
I asked her, "What about your mother? " I was shocked by what she told me. "I suppose that the criminals have something to make us senseless. And I suspect that they will try to use it on us. So I exchanged the rooms. If the criminals make our mothers senseless, then we can go without any obstacles. And if not, I will take care of my mother or we will run away."
Snigdha fell on the bed and fell asleep. We were almost asleep when I asked Sonia, "Sonia I have 2 questions. How do you know that either the 'old man' group or 'young men' group is the criminal? And... How do you know that there are more than 1 man involved!"
Sonia smiled and said, " Last day you asked this same question. Didn't you notice that yesterday when I was observing the trail of blood, there were more than one footprints. And... Today when I was hurt, I had not seen the faces of the man but when I went there, there was a gypsy and I had noted down the number."
