The big lion shot by Kermit. 
From a photograph by Kermit Roosevelt. 
gone by her a quarter of a mile when a 
shout from one of our followers announced 
that he had seen her, and back we galloped, 
threw ourselvesfrom our horses, and walked 
toward where the man was pointing. Tarl- 
ton took his big double-barrel and advised 
me to take mine, as the sun had just set 
and it was likely to be close-work; but I 
shook my head, for the Winchester 405 is, 
at least for me personally, the “medicine 
gun ” for lions. In another moment up she 
jumped, and galloped slowly down the 
other side of the donga, switching her tail 
and growling; I scrambled across the don¬ 
ga, and just before she went round a clump 
of trees, eighty yards off, I fired. The 
bullet hit her fair, and going forward in¬ 
jured her spine. Over she rolled, growling 
savagely, and dragged herself into the 
watercourse; and running forward I fin¬ 
ished her with two bullets behind the 
shoulder. She was a big, fat lioness, very 
old, with two cubs inside her; her lower 
canines were much'worn and injured. She 
was very heavy, and probably weighed con¬ 
siderably over three hundred pounds. 
The light was growing dim, and camp 
was eight or ten miles away. The porters 
—they are always much excited over the 
death of a lion—wished to carry the body 
whole to camp, and I let them try. While 
they were lashing it to a pole another lion 
began to moan hungrily half a mile away. 
Then we started; there was no moon, but 
the night was clear and we could guide our¬ 
selves by the stars. The porters staggered 
under their heavy load, and we made slow 
progress; most of the time Tarlton and I 
walked, with our double-barrels in our 
hands, for it was a dangerous neighbor¬ 
hood. Again and again we beard lions, 
and twice one accompanied us for some 
distance, grunting occasionally, while we 
kept the men closed. Once the porters 
were thrown into a panic by a succession of 
steam-engine-like snorts on our left, which 
announced the immediate proximity of a 
rhino. They halted in a huddle while 
Tarlton and I ran forward and crouched to 
try to catch the great beast’s loom against 
the sky-line; but it moved off. Four miles 
from camp was a Masai kraal, and we 
went toward this when we caught the 
gleam of the fires; for the porters were 
getting exhausted. 
The kraal was in,shape a big oval, with 
a thick wall of thorn-bushes, eight feet high, 
the low huts standing just within this wall, 
while the cattle and sheep crowded small 
bomas in the centre. The fires gleamed 
here and there within, and as we approached 
we heard the talking and laughing of men 
275 
