200 
HUNTING IN THE SOTIK 
The lion stopped and lay down behind a bush; jump¬ 
ing off I took a shot at him at two hundred yards, but only 
wounded him slightly in one paw; and after a moment’s 
sullen hesitation off he went, lashing his tail. We mounted 
our horses and went after him; Tarlton lost sight of him, 
but I marked him lying down behind a low grassy ant hill. 
Again we dismounted at a distance of two hundred yards; 
Tarlton telling me that now he was sure to charge. In all 
East Africa there is no man, not even Cuninghame himself, 
whom I would rather have by me than Tarlton, if in diffi¬ 
culties with a charging lion; on this occasion, however, I 
am glad to say that his rifle was badly sighted, and shot 
altogether too low. 
Again I knelt and fired; but the mass of hair on the lion 
made me think he was nearer than he was, and I undershot, 
inflicting a flesh wound that was neither crippling nor fatal. 
He was already grunting savagely and tossing his tail erect, 
with his head held low; and at the shot the great sinewy 
beast came toward us with the speed of a greyhound. 
Tarlton then, very properly, fired, for lion hunting is no 
child’s play, and it is not good to run risks. Ordinarily it is 
a very mean thing to experience joy at a friend’s miss; but 
this was not an ordinary case, and I felt keen delight when 
the bullet from the badly sighted rifle missed, striking 
the ground many yards short. I was sighting carefully, 
from my knee, and I knew I had the lion all right; for 
though he galloped at a great pace, he came on steadily— 
ears laid back, and uttering terrific coughing grunts—and 
there was now no question of making allowance for dis¬ 
tance, nor, as he was out in the open, for the fact that he 
had not before been distinctly visible. The bead of my 
foresight was exactly on the centre of his chest as I pressed 
the trigger, and the bullet went as true as if the place had 
been plotted with dividers. The blow brought him up all 
standing, and he fell forward on his head. The soft-nosed 
Winchester bullet had gone straight through the chest cav¬ 
ity, smashing the lungs and the big blood vessels of the 
