MY FIRST LION 97 
any better.) I was keyed up for a shot as I mounted the 
ridge, and had my Mauser’s 300 yard sight already raised. 
I did not think I should get nearer, and the morning 
was by now well advanced. I shot twice, as quickly as I 
could, aiming for the head of the lot, and to my delight and 
surprise heard each bullet tell, and two loud answering 
grunts. The grass was here quite long. Perhaps that 
was the reason our friends had let us nearer than before. 
We came, Brownie and I, down into it cautiously enough. 
for two were hit, and there must have been at least six or 
eight others unwounded. 
When, shoulder to shoulder, we came to the edge of this 
heavier cover, there was ominous growling from our front. 
Until it stopped we stood still. Then a farther advance 
of ten or fifteen yards would be met by more low grunt- 
ings. And we would stand again. It took some little 
time to reach the place where the running band was when 
I fired into the brown of them. (It was much too far away, 
and there was not time to single out a lion.) Here we 
saw that one lion was shot low down in the leg and another 
high up and too far back in the shoulder, the height of the 
blood marks on the grass and bushes marking quite 
accurately the nature of the wounds. Two wounded lions 
in front of us, the grass growing longer as the plain sloped 
to the river, bushes thickening around us, and several deep 
_ brushy dongas cutting our path—this was, as they would 
| say in the West, rather a poor “‘layout.’”’ I will not weary 
those who have followed my day’s story so far by detailing 
the hunting of the next four hours, for during all that long 
time did we two steadily press that growling, protesting 
band, till at last it took cover in the impenetrable jungle of the 
river border, not so far from the place where, almost a 
month before, Momba had been mauled. JI never put in 
before such a four hours, and I don’t think I shall again. 
The sun grew very hot, my poor fog-dimmed eyes failed 
