CH. VIII] A DIFFICULT SHOT 185 
lair. Again and again, as we beat cautiously through 
the bushes, the rank smell of the beasts smote our 
nostrils. At last, as we sat at the foot of one koppie, 
Kermit spied through his glasses a lion on the side of 
the koppie opposite, the last and biggest, and up it we 
climbed. On the very summit was a mass of cleft and 
broken boulders, and while on these Kermit put up two 
lions from the bushes which crowded beneath them. 
I missed a running shot at the lioness as she made off 
through the brush. He probably hit the lion, and very 
cautiously, with rifles at the ready, we beat through the 
thick cover in hopes of finding it, but in vain. Then we 
began a hunt for the lioness, as apparently she had not 
left the koppie. Soon one of the gun-bearers, who was 
standing on a big stone, peering under some thick 
bushes, beckoned excitedly to me, and when I jumped 
up beside him he pointed at the lioness. In a second 
I made her out. The sleek, sinister creature lay not 
ten paces off, her sinuous body following the curves of 
the rock as she crouched flat, looking straight at me. 
A stone covered the lower part, and the left of the 
upper part, of her head; but I saw her two unwinking 
green eyes looking into mine. As she could have 
reached me in two springs, perhaps in one, I wished 
to shoot straight; but I had to avoid the rock which 
covered the lower part of her face, and, moreover, I 
fired a little too much to the left. The bullet went 
through the side of her head and in between the neck 
and shoulder, inflicting a mortal, but not immediately 
fatal, wound. However, it knocked her off the little 
ledge on which she was. lying, and, instead of charging, 
she rushed up hill. We promptly followed, and again 
clambered up the mass of boulders at the top. Peering 
over the one on which I had climbed, there was the 
