I was tempted to swear in that moment.
You idiot! You should've pulled the trigger!
One thing was clear, if the tiger was in the forest, than I wanted to be out of it. I bounded down out of my hiding place into the open ravine below. As I reached my baited trap I turned with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Sure enough the tiger had come ghosting up behind me in the snow and now it was, but ten feet away. My insides turned to jelly at the sight of the massive snarling face.
The tiger truly was massive. It was an adult male specimen that probably tipped the scale close to 700 pounds. One massive paw swung out in a threatening swing into the air, as its roar sounded threateningly husky from within.
I realized that I still held the stick I'd used to set the trap.
"Easy big boy! I just came to set this off."
The stick depressed the trap's trigger mechanism and it sprang shot with a loud metallic clang, crunching my stick in its iron jaws. The tiger's heavy breathing abruptly stopped, as his ears pressed flat and he crouched down low in the snow, his big eyes going from me to the trap and back again.
I had been backing up meanwhile trying my best to appear nonthreatening, but ready to bring the rifle to bare at a moment's notice. Not that it would matter. The skull of a tiger is so dense in the front that you could fire both barrels of a shotgun point-blank and have no distinguishable impact other than to enrage the beast further. I was dead meat with or without the rifle at this short distance.
The tiger stayed put and didn't advance past the trap.
I let the muzzle of my rifle incline towards the fallen bear, "I don't suppose you'd mind sharing would you?"
Amazingly the tiger seemed to sense what I was referring to and it leaped off to the side in a sudden action of movement that had my breath locked up inside of me and my finger tightening on the trigger. The tiger's claws latched into the bear's carcass, as the tiger's great head turned back to me with a vicious snarl and a half roar.
Point taken. His kill, his meal.
I kept backing away feeling grateful to still have my life as the tiger watched me go. When I was out of sight I headed back to the cabin and depression set down hard upon me. What a fool I was!
I was heading back with nothing, when I could have had both the bear and a tiger. There would've been enough meat to last for months. The two rabbits would be gone by tomorrow and if I wasn't successful in another hunt, then our dire situation would be because of me. Worse yet, I felt another snow storm, coming on. Hunting might not even be an option open and available to us much longer.