86 THE LAND OF THE LION 
chance it to my left. It instantaneously occurred to me 
that in that direction lay the steep river valley on whose 
edge we had been hunting, and there was more probability 
of the lions denning up for the heat of the day among its 
rocks, than in the opener country to the right. The lions 
couldn’t see me, the danger was that they would smell, 
and that increased moment by moment. I might crawl 
fifty yards nearer, and chance a shot through the tough 
intervening thorn stems, but I knew that would be foolish- 
ness. The band would scatter, the surrounding cover was 
long and I might get nothing at all. If I got a shot,on the 
other hand, at the leader, lion or lioness, I was likely to hit 
a fine animal. 
These thoughts and hopes, and far more unnerving 
desperate fears, that after all I could not get one, that they 
would escape me, whirled through my brain, as [ sat still, 
before I made up my mind what I would do. I knew of 
course that if the wind did give me away, the lions might 
just retire behind the ant heap they were lying on, and then 
it was “‘good-bye”’ and all my trouble to begin over again. 
But I was not without hope that when they got the wind, 
they would come forth just for one moment to make sure, 
and I staked my all on that. If hard luck had been mine in 
my long waiting, surely fortune would smile on me at last. 
I crawled away from my men, ignoring a last agonized 
whisper from Dooda, and sat up in the grass, here two feet 
high, where I could command the side toward the river, 
I rested my elbows on my knees and waited. 
Was there a big lion among them? Would they clear 
at once? or would they wait and make sure? Would they 
stand? Would they charge? I had my tense, glorious 
moment surely. I could hear the panting breath of the two 
men who had crawled out after me, and were now crouching 
beside me. And then at the long last fortune smiled on me 
indeed. I saw a movement among the fawny mass. And 
