376 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



The violent strain and shock, as the two vigorous beasts 

 bounded together, broke off the horn, leaving the broken 

 part, ten inches long, imbedded in the other buck's chest; 

 about three inches of the point being fixed firmly in the 

 body of the buck, while the rest stuck out like a picket pin. 

 Yet the buck seemed well and strong. 



Two days after leaving Lake Hannington they camped 

 near the ostrich-farm of Mr. London, an American from 

 Baltimore. He had been waging war on the lions and 

 leopards, because they attacked his ostriches. He had 

 killed at least a score of each, some with the rifle, some 

 with poison or steel traps. The day following their arrival 

 London went out hunting with Kermit and Tarlton. They 

 saw nothing until evening, when Kermit's gun-bearer, 

 Kassitura, spied a leopard coming from the carcass of a 

 zebra which London had shot to use as bait for his traps. 

 The leopard saw them a long way off and ran; Kermit 

 ran after it and wounded it badly, twice; then Tarlton got 

 a shot and hit it; and then London came across the 

 dying beast at close quarters and killed it just as it was 

 gathering itself to spring at him. 



Thence they went to Nakuru, where Kermit killed two 

 Neuman's hartebeest. They were scarce and wild, and 

 Kermit obtained his two animals by long shots after fol- 

 lowing them for hours; following them until, as he ex- 

 pressed it, they got used to him, became a little less quick 

 to leave, and gave him his chance. 



While on this trip Kermit passed his twentieth birthday. 

 While still nineteen he had killed all the kinds of African 

 dangerous game lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo, and rhino. 



Heller also rejoined us, entirely recovered. He had 

 visited Mearns and Loring at their camp high up on Mount 

 Kenia, where they had made a thoroughly biological sur- 

 vey of the mountain. He had gone to the line of perpetual 

 snow, where the rock peak rises abruptly from the swelling 

 downs, and had camped near a little glacial lake whose waters 

 froze every night. The zones of plant and animal life were 



