LEOPARDS AND CHEETAHS 



dently thought that some enemy from underneath had 

 gotten hold of his leg, so he began to dance around the 

 spot in the most curious manner, scratching up the grass 

 and ground with his powerful front paws. It was all we 

 could do to refrain from laughing aloud at this strange 

 performance. 



Suddenly the leopard stopped and looked carefully 

 around in all directions before he began to resume his walk. 

 Just then I fired for the third time. Now we plainly heard 

 a sharp click a fraction of a second later, but as the leopard 

 had disappeared, my talkative gun bearer remarked that he 

 had run away, and had not been hit. But from that little 

 click that we heard, I was rather certain that the bullet 

 must have struck his head. We ran forward in a straight 

 line to where we had last seen the leopard, and there, to 

 our delight, we found the beautiful animal dead, with a 

 bullet through its brain. 



We then found that the second bullet, which had caused 

 the leopard to dance around and dig up the ground in a 

 vain effort to find his enemy, had only made a small flesh 

 wound on his left front leg, some three inches above the 

 paw. I measured the distance between the leopard and the 

 spot where I stood when I fired, and found it to be exactly 

 six hundred and seventy-five yards, which shows the supe- 

 riority of the Mannlicher for long-distance shooting. Of 

 course, such a shot would have been impossible, if I had 

 not had the gun fitted with a very superior telescopic sight, 

 for with the bare eye the little front bead of the gun would 

 have entirely covered the animal, and thus prevented an 

 accurate shot. 



To show the cunning of leopards I will here relate the 



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