342 BIG GAME SHOOTING 
that I had really experienced a most extraordinary piece of 
ill-luck. It was not yet half-past eight, and the first thing I 
did was to go up to Dr. Edgelow’s hut, and take my rifle to 
pieces. The cap had been untouched by the striker, and I 
thought at first that the point of the latter was broken, but I 
found it in perfect order. Finally I discovered that the miss-fire 
was owing to the safety-bolt having got so loose that it must 
have shifted up a little when I jerked the rifle rapidly from one 
opening to another, and thus prevented the striker from coming 
down on the cap. After fixing the safety-bolt down to full 
cock I went to my waggon. I felt sure the lion would not now 
return, if he came back at all, till just before daybreak, when the 
moon would have set and it would be very dark. 
I was so upset and exasperated by the cruel experience I 
had met with that I could not lie still or sleep, and so spent 
the greater part of the night in walking about round my 
waggon. At last the moon went down, and I then turned in 
and lay listening, hoping to hear the lion at the carcase, but he 
did not return, and presently, just as the day was breaking, 
John brought me the usual early cup of coffee. As I had not 
slept at all, I told him to see if he could follow the lion’s spoor 
and see in which direction he had gone, and then tried to doze 
a bit. Presently I got up, when John came up with a broad 
grin on his face, and said, ‘Sir, after the lion went off when 
your rifle missed fire, he went up to Mr. Johnson’s kraal and 
killed a lot of sheep and goats. One of these he ate in the 
kraal, and he has taken another away with him. I can see 
the spoor plainly where he has dragged it along towards the 
little stream running below Hartley Hills.’ 
I felt there was yet a chance, and a good one, of retrieving 
my evil fortune of the previous evening, and at once had 
my horse saddled up. Thé spoor of the lion himself was easy 
enough to follow in the soft ground at the foot of the hill, and 
the tracking was made all the easier by the fact that he had 
dragged the goat alongside of him, holding it, I suppose, by the 
back of the neck, and trailing its hind-quarters on the ground. 
a lal Pe see 
