MORE LIONS 



earth. Immediately we began that most fascina- 

 ting of games — trailing over difficult ground. In 

 this we could all take part, for the tracks were some 

 hours old, and the cover scanty. Very rarely could 

 we make out more than three successive marks. 

 Then we had to spy carefully for the slightest in- 

 dication of direction. Kongoni in especial was won- 

 derful at this, and time and again picked up a broken 

 grass blade or the minutest inch-fraction of disturbed 

 earth. We moved slowly, in long hesitations and 

 castings about, and in swift little dashes forward of a 

 few feet; and often we went astray on false scents, 

 only to return finally to the last certain spot. In 

 this manner we crossed the little plain with the scat- 

 tered shrub trees and arrived at the edge of the low 

 bluff above the stream bottom. 



This bottom was well wooded along the immediate 

 bank of the stream itself, fringed with low thick 

 brush, and in the open spaces grown to the edges with 

 high, green, coarse grass. 



As soon as we had managed to follow without fault 

 to this grass, our difficulties of trailing were at an 

 end. The lions' heavy bodies had made distinct 

 paths through the tangle. These paths went for- 

 ward sinuously, sometimes separating one from the 

 other, sometimes intertwining, sometimes combining 

 into one for a short distance. We could not deter- 



155 



