brave mother had stood between her young and 

 death. 



***** 



Any attempt to follow the lioness after that would 

 have been waste of time. We struck off in a new 

 direction, and in crossing a stretch of level ground 

 where the thorn-trees were well scattered and the grass 

 fairly short my eye caught a movement in front that 

 brought me to instant standstill. It was as if the stem 

 of a young thorn-tree had suddenly waved itself and 

 settled back again, and it meant that some long- 

 horned buck, perhaps a koodoo or a sable bull, was 

 lying down and had swung his head ; and it meant 

 also that he was comfortably settled, quite unconscious 

 of danger. I marked and watched the spot, or rather, 

 the line, for the glimpse was too brief to tell more than 

 the direction ; but there was no other move. The 

 air was almost still, with just a faint drift from him 

 to us, and I examined every stick and branch, every 

 stump and ant-heap, every bush and tussock, without 

 stirring a foot. But I could make out nothing : I 

 could trace no outline and see no patch of colour, 

 dark or light, to betray him. 



It was an incident very characteristic of Bushveld 

 hunting. There I stood minute after minute not 

 risking a move, which would be certain to reveal me 

 staring and searching for some big animal lying half- 

 asleep within eighty yards of me on ground that you 

 would not call good cover for a rabbit. We were in 

 the sunlight : he lay somewhere beyond, where a few 

 scattered thorn-trees threw dabs of shade, marbling 



435 



