MY ACQUAINTANCE WITH LIONS | 81 
foolish but nevertheless watched him go through 
my pet lion bed. Only a few minutes later Mc- 
Cutcheon pointed toward the upper end of the stream 
and said: 
“What is that?” 
“My pair of lions,” I answered. 
They were going up the hill exactly as they had 
three years before except this time they did not sepa- 
rate. We watched them to the top of the hill. We 
started out to head them off. As we reached the 
top of the hill to one side of where they had gone, 
we heard a lion grunt behind us. There, about a 
hundred and twenty-five yards away, were the lion 
and lioness apparently in a very nasty humour. We 
all crouched down, and as we did so the lions rose 
up to see us. I said to Mrs. Akeley: 
“Shoot whenever you are ready.” 
I was pretty nervous, for a couple of mad lions in 
the grass make a very bad outlook. 
She fired and missed clean. The lioness began 
lashing her flanks. Mrs. Akeley fired again. The 
lion fell dead with a bullet through his brain. | 
McCutcheon and I urged each other to shoot the 
lioness, who, in the meantime, bolted and got away. 
I have handled nearly fifty lions, but this one that 
Mrs. Akeley killed was the largest of all and he had 
a good yellow mane. I can’t prove that it was the 
same pair I had seen three years before. What we 
know of lions is against it, but I still like to think it 
was. This was Mrs. Akeley’s first lion—a splendid 
trophy, cleanly killed. 
