THE LAND OF FOOTPRINTS 



Luckily I always use a sheard gold bead sight, and 

 even in the dimness of the tree-shaded thicket it 

 showed up well. The beast was only forty yards 

 away, so I fired at his head. He rolled over without 

 a sound. 



We took the usual great precautions in determin- 

 ing the genuineness of his demise, then carried him 

 into the open. Strangely enough the bullet had 

 gone so cleanly into his left eye that it had not even 

 broken the edge of the eyelid; so that when skinned 

 he did not show a mark. He was a very decent 

 maned lion, three feet four inches at the shoulder, 

 and nine feet long as he lay. We found that he had 

 indeed been the rear guard, and that the rest, on the 

 other side of the thicket, had made off at the shot. 

 So in spite of the apparent danger of the situation, 

 our calculations had worked out perfectly. Also we 

 had enjoyed a half day's sport of an intensity quite 

 impossible to be extracted from any other method of 

 following the lion. 



In trying to guess how any particular lions may 

 act, however, you will find yourself often at fault. 

 The lion is a very intelligent and crafty beast, and 

 addicted to tricks. If you follow a lion to a small 

 hill, it is well to go around that hill on the side op- 

 posite to that taken by your quarry. You are quite 

 likely to meet him for he is clever enough thus to try 



i6o 



