MY ACQUAINTANCE WITH LIONS 75 
when the one with the spear stepped to one side and 
thrust his spear into the lion’s neck killing him in- 
stantly. He fell at their feet. As the boy with- 
drew the spear and carefully wiped the blood off on 
the corner of his breechcloth he remarked to Rainey: 
“You see, Master, it is work for a child.” 
That is how the Masai figured it. But I never 
have felt so. The first wild lion I ever saw scared me 
almost to death, and a good many of them have 
scared me since. The first lions that I saw were in 
Somaliland. 
An oryx hunt had just come to a close. We were 
about to mount our ponies when one of the black boys 
pointed. There were three lions walking quietly 
across a patch of hard, dry sand. They were perhaps 
a hundred yards away. They looked as big as oxen 
to me. I had never before seen a lion outside of a 
cage. We turned our ponies over to the Somali gun 
boys who galloped after them to round them up. 
My next view of the lions was when the beaters had 
gone in to drive them out of a bit of jungle. A roar 
came from immediately in front of me and I saw a 
lioness in mid-air as high as my head, springing, thank 
heaven, diagonally away from me. But she saw 
me as she sprang and landed facing me. As I 
fired, a lion jumped over her back, which so discon- 
certed me that my shot only wounded her. This 
lion disconcerted her, too, for she followed him. Two 
more shots at her and she disappeared in another 
clump of cover with the lions. In our efforts to drive 
them out of this cover we finally set it on fire. The 
