122 THE LAND OF THE LION 
I will add one short story, as a further illustration of 
my contention. A friend of mine, now dead, told me he 
wanted above all things to kill a grizzly. So I wrote to 
Frank C and my friend went out to the Shoshone 
Mountains. Ina couple of months he came to see me in 
New York, and told a blood-curdling tale, of how he and 
Frank had been charged by three bears, and how, at a 
few feet distance, they had killed them. I was surprised, 
but, of course, said nothing. Next year I said to my 
man, ‘“‘What about those three grizzlies that charged 
you and ?” He laughed. “‘We were hidden,” said he, 
*‘in the scrub, at the foot of a nut pine. The bait we had 
for them was fifty yards away. An old sow and two 
yearling cubs came all right in the evening. wounded 
the sow he first shot, and she and her cubs came rushing 
by our tree, they never saw us, they had no idea where the 
shot came from. We killed them as they ran by and 
passed us.” 
I hope these dissertations on our only dangerous game 
animals may not seem without interest or out of place 
here. I dwell on them, for I am convinced, that the dan- 
ger of charging beasts, which is I admit, considerable in 
Africa, has been very needlessly and grossly exaggerated. 
It is serious, and must be prepared for, but there is 
no need to make it out worse than it iss Many men have 
killed all sorts of animals here, and will tell you honestly 
they have never seen the determined charge of lion, rhino, 
elephant, buffalo, or leopard. Yet, of course, the fact 
remains that many are killed or mauled by these animals. _ 
And though you may shoot several of them, and never 
stand on the stern defensive, when it is your life or theirs, 
the very first lion or rhino you wound, may come straight 
at you, and may not swerve or pass to either side. 
The little burial ground at Nairobi has several head- 
stones marked ‘“‘killed by lions.” All elephant hunters tell 
