bullet glanced along the skull, peeling off the skin. 

 " It was a bad shot," he said afterwards, in answer to 

 the beginner's breathless questions. " He wasn't hurt : 

 just sank a little like a pointer when you check him ; 

 but before he steadied up again I took for the nose 

 and got him. You see," he added thoughtfully, 

 " a lion's got no forehead : it is all hair." 



That was about all he had to say ; but, little store 

 as he may have set on it, the tip was never forgotten and 

 proved of much value to at least one of our party years 

 afterwards. To this day the picture of a lion brings 

 up that scene the crouching beast, faced by a man 

 with a long brown beard, solemn face, and clear un- 

 faltering eyes ; the swift yet quiet action of reloading ; 

 and the second shot an inch or so lower, because " a 

 lion's got no forehead : it's all hair." 



The shooting of a lion, fair and square, and face 

 to face, was the Blue Riband of the Bush, and no 

 detail would have seemed superfluous ; but Bill, 

 whose eye nothing could escape, had, like many great 

 hunters, a laggard tongue. Only now and then a 

 look of grave amusement lighted up his face to show 

 he recognised the hungry enthusiasm and his own 

 inability to satisfy it. The skin with the grazed 

 stripe along the nose, and the broken skull, were 

 handled and looked at many times, and the story 

 was pumped from every Kaffir all voluble and eager, 

 but none eye-witnesses. Bob, the sociable and more 

 communicative, who had been nearest his brother, 

 was asked a hundred questions, but all he had to say 

 was that the grass was too long for him to see what 



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