94 
AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 
or night ever came amiss to him. He had already trained 
eight Wakamba porters to act as skinners under his super¬ 
vision. On hearing of our success, he at once said that we 
ought to march out to the game that night so as to get to 
work by daylight. Moreover, we were not comfortable at 
leaving only two men with each carcass, for lions were both 
bold and plentiful. 
The moon rose at eight and we started as soon as she 
was above the horizon. We did not take the horses, be¬ 
cause there was no water where we were going, and fur¬ 
thermore we did not like to expose them to a possible attack 
by lions. The march out by moonlight was good fun, for 
though I had been out all day, I had been riding, not walk¬ 
ing, and so was not tired. A hundred porters went with us 
so as to enable us to do the work quickly and bring back 
to camp the skins and all the meat needed, and these por¬ 
ters carried water, food for breakfast, and what little was 
necessary for a one-night camp. We tramped along in sin¬ 
gle file under the moonlight, up and down the hills, and 
through the scattered thorn forest. Kermit and Medlicott 
went first, and struck such a pace that after an hour we had 
to halt them so as to let the tail end of the file of porters 
catch up. Then Captain Slatter and I set a more de- 
corus pace, keeping the porters closed up in line behind us. 
In another hour we began to go down a long slope toward 
a pin-point of light in the distance which we knew was the 
fire by the rhinoceros. The porters, like the big children they 
were, felt in high feather, and began to chant to an accom¬ 
paniment of whistling and horn-blowing as we tramped 
through the dry grass which was flooded with silver by the 
moon, now high in the heavens. 
