490 A HUNTER'S WANDERINGS ch. 



it managed to make its escape. The long grass I 

 have spoken of was a little patch about ten yards 

 square, which had somehow escaped the grass fire 

 that shortly before had swept over the whole country. 

 On one side it was separateci by scarcely twenty 

 yards from a patch of forest and scrub, and it was 

 from this side that I had seen the lioness enter it. 

 On the other side lay an open valley as bare of cover 

 as a billiard-table. Close to the farther side of the 

 patch of grass stood a single mopani tree. Jameson 

 and I now advanced with our rifles on full cock, my 

 friend being ready to take the first shot. We had 

 got right up to the grass without seeing anything, 

 and I had just said, " Well, I know she went in here ; 

 go round that side," when, with a startled sort of 

 purr, a lioness followed by a cub sprang through the 

 grass, and gained the shelter of the bush without 

 giving either of us a chance of a shot. She had come 

 from the toot of the mopani tree, and as our eyes 

 were again turned there, another lioness, that must 

 have been asleep, stood up, and with her hind-quarters 

 turned towards us, stood looking fixedly right away 

 from where we were : at the same time I saw that a 

 half-grown cub was still lying at the foot of the tree, 

 watching us intently. At that instant Jameson fired, 

 dropping the lioness in her tracks, and then let go 

 the second barrel at the cub as it made tor the bush. 

 The lioness was dead, my friend's bullet having 

 caught her in the neck just behind the heaci. We 

 found that these lions had killed an eland cow 

 just within the ecige of the torest, and the one I so 

 opportunely saw must just have been' coming from 

 a luncheon ofi^ the carcase, to join the other under 

 the mopani tree. 



The next day we had a very long walk, as we 



