With r-kishlii^ht aiul Rifle -^ 



Now we realise, for the first time, that our pursuit 

 has taken us nearly six hours, and that our throats are 

 parched ; but we bear up cheerfully. The thought of 

 the royal booty we have captured against our expectations 

 gives us new stores of strength, and enables us to forget 

 our thirst and the scars and scratches we have got on 

 face and hands from the thorns. Once again I had 

 killed a big lion, and under exceptional conditions. 



It has happened to me— only too often, unfortunately — 

 to have merely come in sight of lions, whether single 

 speciniens or several of them together. Either I have 

 seen them for a second only, and they have been out 

 of range, or in high grass at close quarters when I have 

 not been ready to fire, or just at the moment ot their 

 disappearing into a thicket. Thus it was once I came 

 upon a lioness standing near a zebra she had been tearing 

 to pieces. Numbers ot vultures, drawn by the lioness's 

 prey and settling upon the acacia-bushes all round, 

 attracted my steps to the place, where the lioness had 

 taken up her position in the early morning under the 

 shade of a bush. But by the time I had got within 

 two hundred paces she had taken cover and had made 

 off over the side of the hill. 



In very similar circumstances I happened once upon 

 a lion and two lionesses in high grass, also without being 

 able to fire a shot. 



On another occasion I followed a lion-trail. The lion 

 had killed a young zebra during the night, and had dragged 

 it a long way over the velt to one of those rivulet-beds 

 that dry up after the rainy season, there to devour it at 



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