218 
AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 
he sent back to camp for his rifle, and when it came he 
climbed a tree and endeavored to catch a glimpse of the 
animal. He could see nothing, however; and finally fired 
into the thicket rather at random. The answer was a fu¬ 
rious growl, and the leopard charged out to the foot of the 
tree, much hampered by the big thorn-branch. He put a 
bullet into it, and back it went, only to come out and to 
receive another bullet; and he killed it. It was an old male, 
in good condition, weighing one hundred and twenty-six 
pounds. The trap was not big enough to contain his whole 
paw, and he had been caught firmly by one toe. The 
thorn-bush acted as a drag, which prevented him from 
going far, and yet always yielded somewhat when he pulled. 
A bear thus caught would have chewed up the trap or else 
pulled his foot loose, even at the cost of sacrificing the toe; 
but the cats are more sensitive to pain. This leopard was 
smaller than any full-grown male cougar I have ever killed, 
and yet cougars often kill game rather heavier than leopards 
usually venture upon; yet very few cougars indeed would 
show anything like the pluck and ferocity shown by this 
leopard, and characteristic of its kind. 
Kermit killed a waterbuck of a kind new to us, the 
singsing. He also killed two porcupines and two baboons. 
The porcupines are terrestrial animals, living in burrows 
to which they keep during the daytime. They are much 
heavier than, and in all their ways totally different from, 
our sluggish tree porcupines. The baboons were numerous 
around this camp, living both among the rocks and in the 
tree tops. They are hideous creatures. They ravage 
the crops and tear open new-born lambs to get at the milk 
inside them; and where the natives are timid and unable 
