224 THE MAN-EATERS OF TSAVO CHAP. 



beaters came running up shouting with joy ; and 

 although I warned them to be careful, as the two 

 lionesses were probably still close at hand, they did 

 not seem to care in the slightest and in a twinkling 

 had the dead lion lifted from the reeds on to the dry 

 bank. Before I allowed anything further to be done, 

 however, I had the patch of rushes thoroughly 

 beaten out : but as no traces of the lionesses could 

 be found, we commenced to skin my fine trophy. 

 When this was about half done, I decided to let 

 Mahina finish the operation, while I went on ahead 

 to try my luck either with more lions or with any 

 other game that might come my way. I followed 

 up the river almost to its source, but no more lions 

 crossed my path. Once indeed I felt convinced 

 that I saw one, and gave chase to it with all my 

 might as it rushed through the long grass : but a 

 nearer view showed me nothing more than a huge 

 wart-hog. As I wanted the tusks, which I noticed 

 were very fine ones, I fired but only badly hipped 

 him : so I ran up as fast as I could and at ten 

 yards fired again. This time I missed him entirely, 

 and was puzzled to account for my failure until I 

 looked at my back sight and found that by some 

 accident it had got raised and that I had the 200- 

 yards sight up. On rectifying this, another shot 

 quickly put the wounded animal out of pain. 



Still my day's sport was not yet over. While 



