Sporting Trips of a Subaltern 



sand she had thrown up, and deep marks showed 

 where she had slid along the ground in pulling up 

 from her great pace. I had nearly missed her, 

 but luckily I was using a heavy 12-bore rifle 

 with, I think, as much as eight drams of powder, 

 and the shock, although the bullet had only 

 struck her low on the leg, had made her forget 

 my existence at a moment when I hardly wished 

 to be remembered. 



Spots insisted on shaking hands over her 

 corpse, which accomplished, we covered her up 

 and hurried on in the usual formation, following 

 the tracks, now reduced to only one. A couple 

 of the horsemen had pushed on after the third lion 

 while we were busy with No. 2, but had missed 

 him in the bushes ; they accordingly fell in behind 

 us again. 



No. 3's tracks led presently into a very dense 

 patch of bush, round which we worked without 

 finding any spoor leading out, so I fired a shot 

 in at random and promptly evoked a regular 

 " feeding- time at the Zoo" roar, while a fine 

 lion sprang half out of the bush, looking as if 

 he meant to eat both of us. It was, however, 

 only bluff, and he was in again before I could draw 

 a bead on him; this he repeated several times, 

 the while I slowly advanced on him and the 

 horsemen galloped round behind to cut off his 

 retreat. I must own that his sudden appearances 



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