THE LAND OF FOOTPRINTS 



vous excitement renders him unsteady, he has no 

 business ever to tackle dangerous game alone. If, 

 on the other hand, he discovers that identically the 

 same nervous excitement happens to steady his front 

 sight to rocklike rigidity — a rigidity he could not 

 possibly attain in normal conditions — then he will 

 probably keep out of trouble. 



To amplify this further by a specific instance: I 

 hunted for a short time in Africa with a man who 

 was always eager for exciting encounters, whose 

 pluck was admirable in every way, but whose ner- 

 vous reaction so manifested itself that he was ut- 

 terly unable to do even decent shooting at any range. 

 Furthermore, his very judgment and power of ob- 

 servation were so obscured that he could not re- 

 member afterward with any accuracy what had 

 happened — which way the beast was pointing, how 

 many there were of them, in which direction they 

 went, how many shots were fired, in short all the 

 smaller details of the affair. He thought he 

 remembered. After the show was over it was 

 quite amusing to get his version of the incident. 

 It was almost always so wide of the fact as to 

 be little recognizable. And, mind you, he was 

 perfectly sincere in his belief, and absolutely 

 courageous. Only he was quite unfitted by 

 physical make-up for a big game hunter; and I was 



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