MY FIRST LION 99 



nine, and could see the two wounded ones lagging behind. 

 But these kept after the others, and though the blood signs 

 never ceased, they kept their strength. 



Just as I was thinking of giving it up, for my troublesome 

 knee was hanging out signs of distress, and I had been 

 going as hard as I could, my nerves pretty well strung up, 

 for more than four hours since I had wounded the two, 

 we came to a heavy bit of cover that bordered a small 

 stream running between steep rocky banks, and strangely 

 enough, before entering this stronghold (where they would 

 have been quite safe from me), the whole band stopped and 

 looked back. The halt was so very brief that I had no time 

 even to take a hasty shot. Before I could struggle out of the 

 long grass I was in, and find a place from which I could 

 see to shoot, they were gone, or rather eight lions had passed 

 into the shade. Brownie had counted them. They were 

 too far off for me to do so. What of the two wounded ? 

 He said they had not come in sight yet. As I waited one 

 of them came slowly out of the grass and stood, looking very 

 tired, just for an instant. I fortunately shot it dead. The 

 big lioness, as we saw by following her spoor, crawled 

 cunningly down a little depression into the dark thicket by 

 the stream, and so was lost to us. It seems poor sort of 

 work, when you try to tell accurately what happened, to 

 follow ten lions from early morning to late afternoon, and 

 only get one. All I can say is that, taking it all and all, 

 I had the best hunting day I ever had in my life. I might 

 have fired almost at random on lions moving in concealing 

 grass, as I might even more frequently have done during the 

 hour or so on the day before when the band was scattered 

 all round me, and when at times several were within a few 

 yards, but, both for the sake of the lions and for our own, 

 I am sure, to do so would have been a grave mistake. 

 I have no conscience about killing lions. They are magni- 

 ficent cats, but dangerous and cruel above all others 



