RIDING THE PLAINS. 185 



to top was perhaps not over fifty to one hundred 

 feet. 



Slowly we rode along the shallow grass and 

 brush ravines in the troughs of the low billows, 

 while the dogs worked eagerly in and out of cover, 

 and our handful of savages cast stones and 

 shouted. Occasionally we divided forces, and 

 beat the length of a hill, two of us lying in wait 

 at one end for the possible lion, the rest sweep- 

 ing the sides and summits. Many animals came 

 bounding along, but no lions. Then Harold 

 Hill, urilimbering a huge, many-jointed tele- 

 scope, would lie flat on his back, and sight the 

 fearsome instrument over his crossed feet, in a 

 general bird's-eye view of the plains for miles 

 around. While he was at it we were privileged 

 to look about us, less under the burden of re- 

 sponsibility. We could make out the game as 

 little, light-coloured dots and speckles, thousands 

 upon thousands of them, thicker than cattle 

 ever grazed on the open range, and as far as the 

 eye could make them out, and then a glance 

 through our glasses picked them up again for 

 mile after mile. Even the six-power could go 

 no farther. The imagination was left the vision 

 of more leagues of wild animals even to the half- 

 guessed azure mountains and beyond. I had 



