MY FIRST LION 



97 



any better.) I was keyed up for a shot as I mounted the 

 ridge, and had my Mauser's 300 yard sight already raised. 



I did not think I should get nearer, and the morning 

 was by now well advanced. I shot twice, as quickly as I 

 could, aiming for the head of the lot, and to my delight and 

 surprise heard each bullet tell, and two loud answering 

 grunts. The grass was here quite long. Perhaps that 

 was the reason our friends had let us nearer than before. 

 We came, Brownie and I, down into it cautiously enough. 

 for two were hit, and there must have been at least six or 

 eight others unwounded. 



When, shoulder to shoulder, we came to the edge of this 

 heavier cover, there was ominous growling from our front. 

 Until it stopped we stood still. Then a farther advance 

 of ten or fifteen yards would be met by more low grunt- 

 ings. And we would stand again. It took some little 

 time to reach the place where the running band was when 

 I fired into the brown of them. (It was much too far away, 

 and there was not time to single out a lion.) Here we 

 saw that one lion was shot low down in the leg and another 

 high up and too far back in the shoulder, the height of the 

 blood marks on the grass and bushes marking quite 

 accurately the nature of the wounds. Two wounded lions 

 in front of us, the grass growing longer as the plain sloped 

 to the river, bushes thickening around us, and several deep 

 brushy dongas cutting our path this was, as they would 

 say in the West, rather a poor "layout." I will not weary 

 those who have followed my day's story so far by detailing 

 the hunting of the next four hours, for during all that long 

 time did we two steadily press that growling, protesting 

 band, till at last it took cover in the impenetrable jungle of the 

 river border, not so far from the place where, almost a 

 month before, Momba had been mauled. I never put in 

 before such a four hours, and I don't think I shall again. 

 The sun grew very hot, my poor fog-dimmed eyes failed 



