THE SPOOR OF SEVEN LIONS 



The rhinos had come as an unwelcome interlude 

 in our lion hunt, causing us to waste a good deal of 

 valuable daylight. Still, as soon as possible we went 

 on again towards the place where Clark had seen the 

 troop. We found no trace of them, however, and 

 had begun to think that they must have left the 

 neighbourhood, when we fell in with some Masai, 

 who told us that they knew where there was a bunch 

 of seven of the beasts. This put new heart into us. 

 We returned to our camp and were out again early 

 in the morning, feeling that this time we were going 

 to succeed. On our way we had two more encounters 

 with rhino, though they were mild compared with 

 the one of the previous day, and none of the party 

 received any injury. Before long, to my great joy, 

 we found ourselves actually on the fresh spoor of the 

 seven lions, and I fully beUeve that at that moment 

 they could not have been a quarter of a mile in front 

 of us. Yet, though we tried our hardest, we never 

 even had a gHmpse of them. It would have been less 

 disappointing if we had never seen their tracks at all. 



Passing along into the Reserve, we came on a Masai 

 herdsman in charge of some two or three hundred 

 head of cattle. He was leaning on his spear, and he 

 hardly deigned to notice us as we came up. In answer 

 to our questions about the lions — we knew that they 

 must have passed near him — he merely pointed over 

 his shoulder, whilst continuing to lean on his spear, and 



lOI 



