CHAPTER V 



LION STORIES 



We were continually shifting our camps and 

 making patrols in different quarters where in- 

 vestigations were needed. Johnson turned up one 

 evening on a visit, and we had a great talk that 

 night. He told us he had recently seen the tracks 

 where a couple of lions had killed and eaten a zebra. 

 The old stallion had made a great fight for life, 

 the lions apparently not having got a good grip at 

 the start. Mad with pain and fear, the wretched 

 animal had smashed and banged into trees and 

 thorn bushes, plunging and bucking, anything to 

 be rid of those clinging, tearing horrors. Once 

 he actually seemed to have torn free for a few 

 yards, only to be caught and seized again before 

 he could get quite clear ; and, in spite of this 

 desperate fight for his life, they got him down in 

 the end. 



Johnson also told us a good story of a very big 

 lion he had killed some years ago. (We had 

 rather to coax the yarn out of him, but a good lion 

 story is always worth hearing.) Johnson, it 

 seems, had been shooting high up in Rhodesia, 

 and one afternoon, after he had shot a reedbuck 



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