112 HIPPO AND LEOPARD [ch. v 
by a shot through the neck. The porters were much 
wrought up about the snake, and did not at all like my 
touching it and taking it up, first by the tail and then 
by the head. It was only twelve feet long. We tied 
it to a long stick and sent it in by two porters. 
Another day we beat for lions, but without success. 
We rode to a spot a few miles off, where we were joined 
by three Boer farmers. They were big, upstanding 
men, looking just as Boer farmers ought to look who 
had been through a war and had ever since led the 
adventurous life of frontier farmers in wild regions. 
They were accompanied by a pack of big, rough-looking 
dogs, but were on foot, walking with long and easy 
strides. The dogs looked a rough-and-ready lot, but 
on this particular morning showed themselves of little 
use ; at any rate, they put up nothing. 
But Kermit had a bit of deserved good luck. While 
the main body of us went down the river-bed, he and 
McMillan, with a few natives, beat up a side ravine, 
down the middle of which ran the usual dry water¬ 
course fringed with patches of brush. In one of these 
they put up a leopard, and saw it slinking forward 
ahead of them through the bushes. Then they lost 
sight of it, and came to the conclusion that it was in a 
large thicket. So Kermit went on one side of it and 
McMillan on the other, and the beaters approached 
to try and get the leopard out. Of course, none of the 
beaters had guns ; their function was merely to make a 
disturbance and rouse the game, and they were cautioned 
on no account to get into danger. But the leopard did 
not wait to be driven. Without any warning, out he 
came and charged straight at Kermit, who stopped him 
when he was but six yards off with a bullet in the fore 
part of the body; the leopard turned* and as he galloped 
