THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
charge sooner or later, probably when he has approached to within about 
a hundred yards of it. It is therefore most dangerous to gallop up to within 
a hundred yards of a lion that has been ridden after and has turned at 
bay on an open plain, and then to pull in and dismount for a shot; for very 
likely, when one is in the very act of dismounting, the lion will charge, 
and may be on its pursuer almost before he is on the ground, or, at any rate, 
it will give him no time to pull himself together for a shot on which his 
life will depend. If a little sport is wanted with a lion on an open plain, 
ride up to him and let him charge, and then gallop away. At first he will 
gain on the horse, as the sound of the terrific coughing grunts he makes 
as he comes on, getting nearer and nearer, will make plain to the rider; 
but a lion cannot keep up the tremendous speed with which he starts a 
charge for any great distance, and a fairly fast horse soon begins to draw 
away from him. Directly the lion stops after such a charge, bring your 
horse round as quickly as possible and jump off and take your shot, as the 
lion stands growling, but do not waste any time, as he will come on again 
as soon as he gets his wind. This is a much more sporting way of hunting 
lions on horseback on an open plain than killing them at long range with 
small-bore rifles, and thirty years ago it was the only way open to one. 
A method of shooting lions which is often practised and is often very 
effective, is to sit up in an ambush at night over the carcass of an animal 
which has been killed for a bait. There is, of course, no danger attached 
to this method of killing lions unless a wounded animal has to be followed 
into thick bush or long grass the next morning. But the shelter from which 
the shots are fired must be made strong enough to keep out lions, or they 
may try and penetrate it. I have myself had such an experience, one of a 
party of five lions, two of which I had already shot, having attempted to 
break into my rather flimsy shelter. 
But it remained for a citizen of the United States to conceive and carry 
out a plan for destroying lions on a scale never dreamt of, probably, either 
by the sporting kings of ancient Assyria, or modern British big-game 
hunters. In 1911 Mr Paul Rainey, a wealthy American, brought out to 
British East Africa several packs of dogs, some fifty or sixty in number, 
I believe, trained to hunt bears in the Western States. Some of these dogs 
were trackers which had been trained in America to disregard the spoor 
of any animals but bears. Arrived at Nairobi, they were trained to lions, 
at first, I believe, with the aid of a young captive lion which was led about 
round the town, and which the hounds soon learned to track unerringly. 
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