154 ROOSEVELT’S EXPERIENCE IN THE JUNGLE. 
'^Crack I’' spoke a rifle full in his face. 
Limp in death the majestic beast crashed to earth and Col. 
Roosevelt’s first shot at really big game in Africa had saved two 
lives. 
The Ex-President’s fondest ambition had been realized! 
Scarcely had this magnificent beast fallen before the deadly 
aim of the American sportsman, now more than ever a hero among 
these simple children of nature than one of the beaters who had 
gone up the river-bed close by to get some water, came running 
back to say that a lion had been down to drink at one of the shallow 
sand wells. Col. Roosevelt started at once with two trackers, tell¬ 
ing his pony-boy to follow on as soon as he could get the pony 
saddled. When tracking, he had been advised always to have the 
pony led some distance behind. The boy ought to have no difficulty 
in following the tracks of two or three men and a lion, and if the 
pony is kept close up, it is sure to stamp or blow its nose at the 
critical moment. 
A TIRESOME JOURNEY FOLLOWING A LION. 
When they got to the well there was the spoor plain enough in 
the sand, but rather blurred by some rain which had fallen at day¬ 
break. This made the tracking a little difficult after they left the 
river-bed, but when they had followed it slowly for some distance, 
they came to a place where the lion had lain down under a thick bush, 
evidently to shelter from the rain, as the spoor after this was quite 
distinct on the top of the damp ground. 
This made the party think they were in for a short track, for 
it must have been light when the lion went on again, and lions gen¬ 
erally lie up shortly after the sun rises; but this day proved an 
exception, because it was cloudy and cool through the forenoon. 
The spoor now led along a sandy path, where they could follow 
it as fast as they could walk. When it turned off into the bush, all 
quite expected to see the lion at any moment; but not a bit of it—he 
wandered about through endless clumps of mimosa and 'flrgin” 
bushes, as if he did not mean to lie up at all. 
The track at last led down a little sandy watercourse, which it 
