A few days later, soon after our start in the morning, Mrs. Akeley and I were riding ahead of the procession when we met several lions coming out of the grass and bush near a small stream. The spearmen immediately surrounded the bush into which the lions plunged. The lions tried to escape, but in whatever direction any lion tried to go a spearman bobbed up out of the grass in front of him. That is a simple statement, but to jump up in front of a lion or three lions with nothing but a spear and shield as protection is a thing not to be taken lightly. As the lions sought one escape after another, and found each closed, they fought it out. There was about ten minutes of pandemonium. Then we took stock. Three dead lions gathered together in a pile; pretty authentic reports that two others escaped—and not a picture.

At the next spearing, however, I did get two pictures. We were riding along early in the morning through a rough bush country. All at once I heard a lion grunt. The gun boy held up his hand as a signal to stop. The camera was rushed forward to the bank of a little ravine, but before it was assembled ready for the operation a lioness came up within ten feet of the camera, turned to the left, and then ran back by the same route. The boys waved to me to come down twenty-five yards. There, from a little knoll, we got the first movie record of lion spearing. A young, full-grown lion was at bay in tall grass at the bottom of the ravine. The camera trained on the place caught the first spear thrown. The first one was followed by a shower of spears, and a few seconds later the boys rushed in and got their spears. It was all over quicker than it takes to tell it. In the film not only do the falling spears show but also the movement of the lion in the grass, but the cover and a dark day made any part of the film impossible to use as a still picture. Hardly had I finished turning the handle on this scene when I was called off twenty-five yards to another lion at bay. He was held for the camera and a similar record of this one was made. In the meantime, a lone spearman making desperate effort to get into the show stumbled on an old lioness. They fought it out, man and beast together. When we discovered him he was on his back protecting himself with his shield, a single bite in his leg and the lioness dying beside him. He had killed a lioness practically alone, which entitled him to wear a lion's skin headdress.

On this trip of twenty days we had three occasions in which the spearmen rounded up five lions in a bunch and each time they got three of the five. Altogether, we got ten lions and five leopards. One boy was mauled by a leopard, another was bitten on the leg by the lion. These were the only injuries to the men. Not a shot was fired during the twenty days. Our last encounter involved five old lions, three of which were speared, and three cubs captured alive—but no pictures. It happened like this:

Three lions going up a slope, signal given, pandemonium turned loose. Movements of men looked as if the lions had gone over the hill beyond to a dry stream bed. With the heavy camera I ran down the foot of the hill when I was called back and had to run back to the top of the hill where the lion was at bay. He might have been held indefinitely there in the open sunlight—a wonderful chance for a picture. But in spite of long teaching, of threats, promises, and urging, the boys' excitement overcame them. The spears began to fly before the camera was ready. As I was adjusting the camera the lion was speared in full view in the open sunlight. A camera man never had such a chance before, but it was lost because the camera was slow. After the planning, the care, the work—the luck to have it go like this was too much, and my instinct was to grab my gun and shoot the man who threw the first spear. I think it was the most heartbreaking failure I ever had. I intended never to have another, and from that minute I began working on a camera that takes no time to adjust. I got it finally, but that one moment of poignant disappointment cost me many months of toil.

Here is the way I see this lion spearing. A naked savage gets iron ore, then he gets fire from two sticks, and then charcoal. Then he makes a retort of clay in which he smelts the iron ore. With a hunk of granite for an anvil and another for a hammer he rough forges the spear. With soft iron hammers forged in a similar way he finishes the spear which is finally sharpened on native stones. With this equipment he starts out to kill the lion that has been preying on his flocks or herds. He takes a great pride in the achievement, for he will make from the mane a headdress which his exploit entitles him to wear. Of course this does not happen just this way now, but the Nandi's spearmen speared lions with the arms they made before the white men came. It is a fair contest between man and beast. And the courage and skill of these men are wonderful.

Paul Rainey had a ranch on the west shore of Lake Naivasha. One morning his boys reported to him that a lion had invaded the kraal the night before. He set out on horseback with a few of his dogs and two Masai herd boys with their spears. The dogs soon took up the spoor of the lion and brought him to bay under an acacia tree on the grassy plain. The sun had just risen above the hills on the other side of the lake. The long shadows of the table-top acacias lay across the plain, the lion underneath in full sunlight. Rainey jumped off his horse, threw the reins over a bush, and grabbed his rifle from its boot. He then saw the two Masai boys run on toward the lion. As they approached the lion, one threw his spear and missed. They were between him and the lion, and he could not shoot. The boys stood stock still till the lion was in mid-air in his final spring when the one with the spear stepped to one side and thrust his spear into the lion's neck killing him instantly. He fell at their feet. As the boy withdrew the spear and carefully wiped the blood off on the corner of his breechcloth he remarked to Rainey:

"You see, Master, it is work for a child."

That is how the Masai figured it. But I never have felt so. The first wild lion I ever saw scared me almost to death, and a good many of them have scared me since. The first lions that I saw were in Somaliland.

An oryx hunt had just come to a close. We were about to mount our ponies when one of the black boys pointed. There were three lions walking quietly across a patch of hard, dry sand. They were perhaps a hundred yards away. They looked as big as oxen to me. I had never before seen a lion outside of a cage. We turned our ponies over to the Somali gun boys who galloped after them to round them up. My next view of the lions was when the beaters had gone in to drive them out of a bit of jungle. A roar came from immediately in front of me and I saw a lioness in mid-air as high as my head, springing, thank heaven, diagonally away from me. But she saw me as she sprang and landed facing me. As I fired, a lion jumped over her back, which so disconcerted me that my shot only wounded her. This lion disconcerted her, too, for she followed him. Two more shots at her and she disappeared in another clump of cover with the lions. In our efforts to drive them out of this cover we finally set it on fire. The two lions rushed out and escaped us. The lioness, more seriously wounded than I thought, never came. I had failed to get a lion, but I felt satisfied none the less, because the lions had likewise failed to get me. That one moment in that day, when I saw the lioness in the air, I'll never forget, for I realized that death was but an instant away.

From that time until now I have seen a great many lions, shot some, and handled nearly fifty specimens, so that I have made a fairly extended study of the measurements and anatomy of the king of beasts. I have tried also to study his living characteristics and habits, but that is much more difficult. After all, perhaps the most impressive thing about a lion is his foreleg. The more you know of elephants the more you regard the elephant's trunk. The more you know of lions, the more you respect the lion's foreleg and the great padded and clawed weapon at the end of it. It is perhaps the best token of the animal's strength. It is probably two or three times as powerful in proportion to weight as the arm of a man. He can kill a man with one blow of his paw. His other weapon, his jaw, is strong enough to break a zebra's neck at one bite. These are a rather rough measure of an animal's strength, but they give some idea of it.

There is a record which says that a lion has dragged an African buffalo fifty yards. A buffalo weighs at least three times as much as a lion. I have never had evidence of this much "pulling power" but I have known of many instances of lions dragging zebras that far, and the zebras weigh nearly twice as much as the lions do.

Another test of a lion's strength is his ability to stand punishment. I have seen a lion charge with seven lead bullets from an old .577 Express rifle through his shoulder, and only finally succumb to the eighth bullet in his head.

L. J. Tarlton, one of the best shots that has ever hunted game in Africa, told me once, when we were both recuperating from sickness, that he was going to quit shooting lions. What had brought him to this conclusion was an experience which he had just had with a charging lioness. He had hit her three times in the chest. She finally died touching his feet. When he examined her, all three bullets were within a three-inch radius and every one should have been fatal. Yet she had almost reached him despite his fast and accurate shooting.

These instances are exceptions, but often in African hunting the exceptions are about as common as the rule and one exception may be enough to end the story.

My nearest approach to being mauled by a lion came from this same capacity of a lion to carry lead, and from my own carelessness. I had seen a lion standing some little distance away from me clearly in view, and had shot him. The bullet knocked him down and, as I thought, hurt him badly. After a while he got up and came my way. When about forty yards away he gave me another clear shot. So without reloading the first barrel of my double-barrelled rifle I fired the second. I hit him again, but not with the desired result. He charged. There I was with an empty gun to meet the charge of a wounded lion, and with no one else, not even a gun boy, near. All the rules of lion hunting say that you must meet a charge without moving. But all the promptings of instinct were to move, and I moved. I slipped to one side behind a clump of high grass as fast as I could, endeavouring meanwhile to reload. A few seconds after I had left the spot where I should have stood the lion's spring landed him directly on it. He had had to come through a little depression, and this and the long grass had obscured his sight so he had not seen me move. Not landing on me as he expected so disconcerted him that, even though he saw me, he dived into the thick bushes right ahead of him instead of coming at me. There he stopped, threatening for a time to repeat his charge. Finally, changing his mind, he headed deeper into the brush and, as it was too thick to follow him, I let him go. In the mix-up my syce had become so completely frightened that he had jumped into the river, so he was quite unable to tell whether the lion had got my pony or the pony had run away. After a certain amount of fruitless searching I walked the ten miles back to camp.

The usual movement of a lion is a walk or a kind of fox trot. At speed he will still continue to trot except at maximum effort, when he gallops.

Lions do not usually have any habitation; but occasionally they live in caves. When I say live, I do not mean that they inhabit them continuously. They roam about, following the movements of the game. If they happen to be working in a country where there is a cave, they will use it while in the neighbourhood. But a given band of lions usually stays in one place only a short time. The phrase "band of lions" is perhaps not very accurate. Lions go in all kinds of combinations of numbers. There is a cave on the MacMillan ranch near Nairobi from which sixteen lions have been seen to come. Personally I have never seen more than eight lions together, but I have seen almost all combinations of numbers, ages, and sexes below that number. Lions are more often in twos, threes, or fours than in other combinations.

But although I know that lions are accustomed to roam after game, one of the most interesting lion encounters I ever had came from acting on exactly the opposite theory.

There is a place where a little stream flows into the Theba River, where, in 1906, I was looking for buffalo and heard the snarling of two lions. We stopped the buffalo hunt momentarily to locate the lions. We started at the river bank to drive up the small stream toward the higher land and the open. The beaters began their work with their usual noises, which I checked as soon as possible for fear that the lions would go out too far ahead of us to get a shot. I instructed the beaters to go up the little stream with the cover along its banks throwing stones in ahead of them. But my precautions were too late. They had hardly started to work when I noticed on the hills a lion and a lioness—one going to the left and the other to the right. They were in the open. The lion disappeared over the crest of the first hill. I had a theory that he would lie down on the top of that crest and watch us. I accordingly left part of the men in sight while I, with a few others, approached the hill under cover. I finally succeeded in getting to a point behind a pile of rocks. Motioning the men to stay quiet and keep back, I carefully poked my head up and saw the old fellow as he lay looking toward me about seventy-five yards away. I drew back, and then to my disgust one of my companions rose up in full view of the lion, who made off unscathed by the hurried shots I fired at him. This lion stayed constantly in my mind.

Three years later I was camped on the Tana River with Mrs. Akeley, John McCutcheon, and Fred Stephenson. When we decided to march from the Tana to the Theba I told the crowd that I was going by the spot where I had lost the big lion three years before. I had a "hunch" that he would still be there—or perhaps be revisiting the spot as I was. Anyway, the feeling was strong enough to make me go. Stephenson went off on an independent hunt. The others with the safari came with me. We loitered along photographing rhinoceroses until we came in sight of my spot—the place where the little stream emptied into the Theba. I noticed that Stephenson was coming toward us and about to cross the little stream. I remarked, "Fred is going to drive our lions out and never know it." I then felt a little foolish but nevertheless watched him go through my pet lion bed. Only a few minutes later McCutcheon pointed toward the upper end of the stream and said:

"What is that?"

"My pair of lions," I answered.

They were going up the hill exactly as they had three years before except this time they did not separate. We watched them to the top of the hill. We started out to head them off. As we reached the top of the hill to one side of where they had gone, we heard a lion grunt behind us. There, about a hundred and twenty-five yards away, were the lion and lioness apparently in a very nasty humour. We all crouched down, and as we did so the lions rose up to see us. I said to Mrs. Akeley:

"Shoot whenever you are ready."

I was pretty nervous, for a couple of mad lions in the grass make a very bad outlook.

She fired and missed clean. The lioness began lashing her flanks. Mrs. Akeley fired again. The lion fell dead with a bullet through his brain.

McCutcheon and I urged each other to shoot the lioness, who, in the meantime, bolted and got away. I have handled nearly fifty lions, but this one that Mrs. Akeley killed was the largest of all and he had a good yellow mane. I can't prove that it was the same pair I had seen three years before. What we know of lions is against it, but I still like to think it was. This was Mrs. Akeley's first lion—a splendid trophy, cleanly killed.

CHAPTER IV HUNTING THE AFRICAN BUFFALO

The buffalo is different from any other kind of animal in Africa. A lion prefers not to fight a man. He almost never attacks unprovoked, and even when he does attack he is not vindictive. The elephant, like the lion, prefers to be left alone. But he is quicker to attack than the lion and he isn't satisfied merely to knock out his man enemy. Complete destruction is his aim. The buffalo is even quicker than the elephant to take offence at man and he is as keen-sighted, clever, and vindictive as the elephant. As a matter of fact, the domesticated bull is more likely to attack man without provocation than any wild animal I know, and those who wandered on foot around the bulls on our Western prairies in the old cattle days probably experienced the same kind of charges one gets from African buffaloes.

Nevertheless, despite all these qualities, which are almost universally attributed to the African buffalo, I am confident that the buffalo, like the elephant and other wild animals, has no instinctive enmity to man. That enmity, I am sure, is acquired by experience. I had an experience on the Aberdare Plateau with a band of elephants that had seen little or nothing of man, and until they learned about men from me they paid no more attention to me than if I had been an antelope. But after I had shot one or two as specimens, they acquired the traditional elephant attitude. I had a curiously similar experience with buffaloes.

It happened in this way. Mrs. Akeley, Cuninghame, the famous hunter, and I had been trying for some time, but with little luck, to get buffalo specimens for a group for the Field Museum at Chicago.

We had reason to believe that there was a herd of buffaloes living in the triangle made by the junction of the Theba and Tana rivers. As the buffaloes would have to water from one stream or the other, we felt pretty sure of locating them by following down the Theba to the junction and then up the Tana.

From the swamp down the Theba to its junction with the Tana occupied three days in which we saw no fresh signs of buffalo. On the second march up the Tana, as I was travelling ahead of the safari at about midday, looking out through an opening in a strip of thorn bush that bordered the river, I saw in the distance a great black mass on the open plain which, on further investigation with the field glasses, I was reasonably certain was a herd of buffaloes. Sending a note back to Cuninghame, who was in charge of the safari, suggesting that he make camp at a hill on the banks of the Tana about two miles ahead of my position and await me there, I started off over the plain with my two gun boys. Coming up out of a dry stream-bed that I had used to conceal my approach, I came on to a large herd of eland, and my first fear was that I had mistaken eland for buffaloes.

Going farther on, however, we saw a herd of about five hundred buffaloes lying up in a few scattered thorn trees four or five hundred yards away. At first it seemed an almost impossible situation. There was practically no cover and no means of escape in case the herd detected us and saw fit to charge, and at that time my respect for the buffaloes led me to be extremely cautious. We worked around the herd trying to find some place where a safe approach might be made. Finally, seeing a little band of a dozen buffaloes off at one side on the bank of a ravine which offered splendid protection, we stalked them but, unfortunately, not one in the band was desirable as a specimen. Since this was so, I tried them out, giving them my wind, then going up where they could see me better. I found that they were quite indifferent either to the scent or the sight of man. They finally moved off quietly without alarm. I then knew that this herd, like the Aberdare elephants, had had little or no experience with men, and that there was perhaps less to fear from them than from the traditional buffalo of the sportsman. So going back to the main herd, I crept up boldly to within a hundred yards of them. They saw me, faced about, closely inspecting me, but with no sign of alarm. It was approaching dusk, and in this great black mass it was difficult to pick out a good pair of horns except with the aid of glasses. I carefully located a fine bull and then shot, as I supposed, at the one I had located. As I fired, the animals bolted, first away, then back toward me. They wheeled, ran halfway between the dead animal and me, and passing on about a hundred yards to the right wheeled about again and stood watching me, the bulls in the front, lined up like soldiers, the calves and cows in the background. On coming up to the dead animal, I found, much to my regret, that I had shot a cow and not the bull I had picked out through the glasses.

I returned to camp feeling that now at last, from this herd living apparently in the open, we should have relatively little difficulty in completing our series of specimens. On the following morning, much to our disappointment, our first glimpse of the herd was just as it disappeared in the thorn bush along the bank of the river. We put in nearly a week of hard work to complete the series.

During those seven days of continual hunting, that herd which had been indifferent and unsuspecting at the beginning, like the elephants, became cautious, vigilant, and aggressive. For instance, on one occasion near the close of the week, after having spent the day trying to locate the herd, I suddenly came face to face with them just at the edge of the bush at night on my way back to camp. They were tearing along at a good pace, apparently having been alarmed. I stepped to one side and crouched in the low grass while they passed me in a cloud of dust at twenty-five or thirty yards. Even had I been able to pick out desirable specimens at this time I should have been afraid to shoot for fear of getting into difficulties when they had located my position. I turned and followed them rapidly as they sped away over the hard ground until the noise of their stampede suddenly stopped. I then decided that it was best to get to some point of vantage and await further developments. I climbed an acacia tree that enabled me to look over the top of the bush. Fifty yards ahead I could see about fifty buffaloes lined up in a little open patch looking back on their trail. As I was perched in the tree endeavouring to pick out a desirable animal, I suddenly discovered a lone old bull buffalo coming from the bush almost directly underneath me, sniffing and snuffing this way and that. Very slowly, very cautiously he passed around the tree, then back to the waiting herd, when they all resumed their stampede and made good their escape for the day.

One morning I came in sight of the herd just as it was entering the thorn bush and followed hurriedly on the trail, until just at the edge of the jungle I happened to catch sight of the two black hoofs of an old cow behind the low-hanging foliage. I stopped, expecting a charge. After a few moments I backed slowly away until I reached a tree where I halted to await developments. Stooping down I could see the buffalo's nose and black, beady eyes as she stood motionless. The rest of the herd had gone on out of hearing and I think she was quite alone in her proposed attack. After a few moments, apparently realizing that her plan had failed, she turned about and followed the herd, moving very quietly at first, then breaking into a gallop.

On the following day toward evening we came up again with the herd in the same region. As we first saw them they were too far away for us to choose and shoot with certainty. We managed to crawl to a fair-sized tree midway between us and the herd, and from the deep branches picked out the young herd bull of the group. When we had shot and he had disappeared into the bush, a calf accompanied by its mother gave us a fleeting glimpse of itself, with the result that we added the calf to our series.

The herd disappeared into the bush and after a few minutes we descended from our perch and inspected the calf, then started off in the direction the wounded bull had taken, and found him lying dead just a few yards away.

This completed the series, much to our great joy, for by this time we were thoroughly tired of buffalo-hunting. It had been a long, hard hunt, and our safari as well as ourselves were considerably the worse for wear. To shoot a half-dozen buffaloes is a very simple matter and ought to be accomplished almost any day in British East Africa or Uganda, but to select a series of a half dozen that will have the greatest possible scientific value by illustrating the development from babyhood to old age is quite a different matter.

These buffaloes of the Tana country that we found on the plains and in the bush apparently rarely or never go into the swamps, a fact not only confirmed by observation but also indicated by the condition of the hoofs. These are horny, round, and smooth as a result of travelling on the hard and more or less stony ground of the region. But the tinga-tinga buffaloes have lived in the swamp for years and spend practically no time on hard ground; hence the hoofs are long, sharp, and unworn as a result of walking always in the soft mud and water. All this despite the fact that these two herds may actually come in contact at the edge of the swamp. Other herds live in forest country but come out into the grasslands to feed at night, always going back into the forest at daybreak.

In Uganda, where buffaloes are recognized as a menace to life and are of no particular value except for food, they are officially treated as vermin and one may shoot as many as he will. Here the herds had increased to an enormous extent and, because of the dense jungles and general inaccessibility of the country, it was rather difficult to hunt them. While elephant-hunting in Uganda we found the buffaloes a decided nuisance, frequently coming on to them unexpectedly while hot on an elephant trail, sometimes having difficulty in getting rid of them, not wishing to shoot or stampede them because of the danger of frightening away the elephants, to say nothing of the constant menace of running into a truculent old bull at very close quarters in dense jungle. The buffaloes actually mingle with the elephants, each quite indifferent to the other excepting that on one occasion we found elephant calves charging into a herd of buffaloes, evidently only in play. They chased about squealing and stampeding the buffaloes, who kept at a safe distance but did not actually take alarm. Occasionally an old cow whose calf was being hard-pressed by the young elephants would turn, apparently with the intention of having it out, but would always bolt before the elephant could actually reach her. Despite the fact that the record head, fifty-four inches in spread, was shot by Mr. Knowles in Uganda, from our general observation the heads in Uganda run smaller than those of British East Africa while the animals are perhaps heavier.

Although in our buffalo-hunting we have never had any actually serious encounters, I fully appreciate that the buffalo deserves his reputation as one of the most dangerous of big-game animals. His eyesight is good, he has keen scent, and is vigilant and vindictive. While the lion is usually satisfied with giving his victim a knock-out blow or bite, the buffalo, when once on the trail of man, will not only persist in his efforts to find him but, when he has once come up with him, will not leave while there is a vestige of life remaining in the victim. In some cases he will not leave while there is a fragment of the man remaining large enough to form a target for a buffalo's stamping hoofs.

A hunter I met once told me of an experience he had with a buffalo which shows in rather a terrible way these characteristics of the animal. He and a companion wounded a buffalo and followed it into the long grass. It was lurking where they did not expect it and with a sudden charge it was upon them before they had a chance to shoot. The buffalo knocked down the man who told me the story and then rushed after his companion. The first victim managed to climb a tree although without his gun. By that time the other man was dead. But the buffalo was not satisfied. For two hours he stamped and tossed the remains while the wounded man in the tree sat helplessly watching. When the buffalo left, my informant told me, the only evidence of his friend was the trampled place on the ground where the tragedy had taken place. There is nothing in Africa more vindictive than this.

There was another case of an old elephant hunter in Uganda who shot a buffalo for meat. The bullet did not kill the animal and it retreated into the thick bush where there were even some good-sized trees. The old hunter followed along a path. Suddenly the buffalo caught him and tossed him. As he went into the air he grasped some branches overhanging the trail. There he hung unable to get up and afraid to drop down while the wild bull beneath him charged back and forth with his long horns ripping at the hunter's legs. Happily the gun boy came up in time to save his master by killing the beast. This hunter was an extraordinary character. He was very successful and yet he was almost stone deaf. How he dared hunt elephants or any other big game without the aid of his hearing I have never been able to conceive, yet he did it and did it well.

One morning Cuninghame, having gone out with some boys to shoot meat for camp, came upon three old buffaloes. He sent a runner back to camp with the news, and Mrs. Akeley and I started out to join him. Halfway from camp we were obliged to make a wide detour to avoid an old rhino and calf, but soon caught up with Cuninghame. He reported, however, that the buffaloes had passed on into some dense bush. We started to follow but suddenly came upon two rhinos. We quickly turned to leeward in order not to disturb them by giving them our wind, for we were not anxious to bring on a general stampede of the game in the neighbourhood. This turn brought us to the windward of the old cow and calf that we had first avoided, with the result that she came charging up, followed by the calf close at her heels, snorting like a locomotive. Cuninghame helped Mrs. Akeley up a convenient tree. He stood at the base of the tree and I at the foot of another where we waited with our guns ready, watching the old cow go tearing past within twenty feet of us.

We continued on the buffalo trail, but the stampede of the rhino had resulted in alarming the buffaloes so that instead of finding them near by, we were forced to follow them for an hour or more before again coming in sight of them; and again twice more they were stampeded by rhinos that happened to get in our path. At last the buffaloes evidently became tired of being chased from place to place, and came to rest on a sloping hillside which we could approach only by crawling on our hands and knees in the grass for a considerable distance. In this manœuvring it happened that Mrs. Akeley was able to stalk the best bull, and a few minutes later he was finished off and we were busy photographing, measuring, and preparing the skin.

About twenty-five miles to the northwest from the Tana, across the plain on the Theba River, is a marsh where a herd of nearly a hundred buffaloes was known to live, but the Provincial Commissioner had definitely said that we were not to shoot these. We decided finally to ask for the privilege, which was granted, but with a warning in the form of an explanation: that he had told us not to shoot there because of the danger involved.

We found a reed marsh about one by two miles in extent with, at that time, a foot or two of water in the buffalo trails that crisscrossed it in all directions. On arriving, and while making camp at one end of the marsh just at dusk, we saw the herd come out on dry land a half mile away—but they returned to cover before we could approach them. In fact, during nearly two weeks that we spent there we saw them come outside the swamp only twice, each time to return immediately.

We made several attempts to approach them in the marsh, but found that while it was quite possible to get up to them it was out of the question to choose our specimens. Also it would have been impossible to beat a retreat in case of a charge or stampede; so we adopted a campaign of watchful waiting. From the camp at daybreak we would scan the marsh for the snowy cow herons that were always with the buffaloes during the daytime. These would fly about above the reeds from one part of the herd to another, and at times, where the reeds were low, they could be seen riding along perched on the backs of the animals. Having thus located the herd and determined the general direction of its movements, we would go to a point at the edge of the marsh where it seemed likely that the animals would come out, or at least come near enough to be visible in the shorter reeds. It was in this way that we secured the specimen that makes the young bull of the group—and two weeks spent there resulted in securing no other specimen. On this one occasion the buffaloes, accompanied by the white herons, had come to within about a hundred yards of our position on the shores of the swamp. They were in reeds that practically concealed them, but the young buffalo in question, in the act of throwing up his head to dislodge a bird that had irritated him, disclosed a pair of horns that indicated a young bull of the type I wanted. A heron standing on his withers gave me his position, and aiming about two feet below the bird, I succeeded in killing the bull with a heart shot.

CHAPTER V LEOPARDS AND RHINOS

There is a general belief firmly fixed in the popular mind by constant repetition that the ostrich is a very stupid bird. A man might well expect easy hunting of a bird that tried to hide by the traditional method of sticking its head in the sand. But I found that the ostrich, like other African animals, did not always realize its obligation to tradition or abide by the rules set down for its behaviour. I went a long way into the waterless desert of Somaliland after ostriches. We were just across the Haud and were camped in a "tug" or dry stream bed where by digging we could get water for our sixty men and the camels. During two days of hunting in the dry bush of this desert I had seen many ostriches, but none of them had put its head into the ground and left its big black-and-white plumed body for me to shoot at. On the contrary, in this my first experience with them I found them exceedingly wary. They kept their bodies hidden behind the bush. Only their heads were exposed, each head only about large enough to carry a pair of very keen eyes and much too small to serve as a target at the distance that they maintained. As a result of being continually outwitted by them for two days I began to think ill of the man who originally started the story about their stupidity.

With the difficulties of the chase firmly in mind I set out early on the third day to see if I could get a specimen. Concluding that the smaller the party the better the opportunity, I took only a mule and my pony boy. When only a half mile from camp I met an old hyena who was loafing along after a night out. He looked like a good specimen, but after I shot him, one look at his dead carcass was enough to satisfy me that he was not as desirable as I had thought, for his skin was badly diseased. I had very good reason to think of this very hard later in the day. A little farther along I shot a good wart hog for our scientific collection. Leaving the specimen where it lay, I marked the spot and continued in search of the plume-bearers.

Soon after this I climbed to the top of a termite hill about eight feet high to look the country over with field glasses. As I held the glasses to my eyes while adjusting the focus, I suddenly realized that the letter S that I was focussing on was the head and neck of an ostrich and that there was a second letter S beside it. The birds remained perfectly motionless watching and I did likewise, locating their position meanwhile by the termite hills which were nearly in line between us. Suddenly the heads ducked and disappeared behind the bush. I dropped from my perch and ran rapidly to where they had been, but found only their trail in the sand.

When I had given up tracking them and was about to start farther afield I came into an opening in the bush that was about thirty yards wide and two hundred yards long. Near the centre of the opening was a dense green bush a dozen feet in diameter. A beautiful cock ostrich broke into the clearing at full speed just below the bush and as I raised my rifle he disappeared behind the bush. I held ready to catch him as he passed out from behind it on the other side, where there was fifteen or twenty yards of clear ground before he would reach cover again. I stood there ready with my gun up until I felt foolish. Then I ran quickly to the bush expecting to find him just on the other side. He was nowhere in sight, but his trail told the story. As he had come into the open he had seen me and when behind the bush he had stopped short, as indicated by a great hole and swirl of sand where he had caught himself by one foot, had turned at right angles and run straight away the length of the clearing, keeping the bush between himself and his enemy. I have not known many animals to do a more clever thing than this. I got one shot at him later—putting my sights at three hundred yards—but the bullet struck in the sand between his legs.

We returned to camp later in the afternoon and after a little rest and refreshment I started out again with only the pony boy and carrying the necessary tools to get the head of the wart hog that I had shot in the morning. We had no difficulty in finding the place where I had shot him, but there was nothing to be seen of the pig. The place was strewn with vulture features, but surely vultures could not make away with the head. A crash in the bushes at one side led me in a hurry in that direction and a little later I saw my pig's head in the mouth of a hyena travelling up the slope of a ridge out of range. That meant that my wart hog specimen was lost, and, having got no ostriches, I felt it was a pretty poor day.

The sun was setting, and with little to console us the pony boy and I started for camp. As we came near to the place where I had shot the diseased hyena in the morning, it occurred to me that perhaps there might be another hyena about the carcass, and feeling a bit "sore" at the tribe for stealing my wart hog, I thought I might pay off the score by getting a good specimen of a hyena for the collections. The pony boy led me to the spot, but the dead hyena was nowhere in sight. There was the blood where he had fallen, and in the dusk we could make out a trail in the sand where he had been dragged away.

Advancing a few steps, a slight sound attracted my attention, and glancing to one side I got a glimpse of a shadowy form going behind a bush. I then did a very foolish thing. Without a sight of what I was shooting at, I shot hastily into the bush. The snarl of a leopard told me what kind of a customer I was taking chances with. A leopard is a cat and has all the qualities that gave rise to the "nine lives" legend. To kill him you have got to kill him clear to the tip of his tail. Added to that, a leopard, unlike a lion, is vindictive. A wounded leopard will fight to a finish practically every time, no matter how many chances it has to escape. Once aroused, its determination is fixed on fight, and if a leopard ever gets hold, it claws and bites until its victim is in shreds. All this was in my mind, and I began looking about for the best way out of it, for I had no desire to try conclusions with a possibly wounded leopard when it was so late in the day that I could not see the sights of my rifle. My intention was to leave it until morning and if it had been wounded, there might then be a chance of finding it. I turned to the left to cross to the opposite bank of a deep, narrow tug and when there I found that I was on an island where the tug forked, and by going along a short distance to the point of the island I would be in position to see behind the bush where the leopard had stopped. But what I had started the leopard was intent on finishing. While peering about I detected the beast crossing the tug about twenty yards above me. I again began shooting, although I could not see to aim. However, I could see where the bullets struck as the sand spurted up beyond the leopard. The first two shots went above her, but the third scored. The leopard stopped and I thought she was killed. The pony boy broke into a song of triumph which was promptly cut short by another song such as only a thoroughly angry leopard is capable of making as it charges. For just a flash I was paralyzed with fear, then came power for action. I worked the bolt of my rifle and became conscious that the magazine was empty. At the same instant I realized that a solid point cartridge rested in the palm of my left hand, one that I had intended, as I came up to the dead hyena, to replace with a soft nose. If I could but escape the leopard until I could get the cartridge into the chamber!

As she came up the bank on one side of the point of the island, I dropped down the other side and ran about to the point from which she had charged, by which time the cartridge was in place, and I wheeled—to face the leopard in mid-air. The rifle was knocked flying and in its place was eighty pounds of frantic cat. Her intention was to sink her teeth into my throat and with this grip and her forepaws hang to me while with her hind claws she dug out my stomach, for this pleasant practice is the way of leopards. However, happily for me, she missed her aim. Instead of getting my throat she was to one side. She struck me high in the chest and caught my upper right arm with her mouth. This not only saved my throat but left her hind legs hanging clear where they could not reach my stomach. With my left hand I caught her throat and tried to wrench my right arm free, but I couldn't do it except little by little. When I got grip enough on her throat to loosen her hold just a little she would catch my arm again an inch or two lower down. In this way I drew the full length of the arm through her mouth inch by inch. I was conscious of no pain, only of the sound of the crushing of tense muscles and the choking, snarling grunts of the beast. As I pushed her farther and farther down my arm I bent over, and finally when it was almost freed I fell to the ground, the leopard underneath me, my right hand in her mouth, my left hand clutching her throat, my knees on her lungs, my elbows in her armpits spreading her front legs apart so that the frantic clawing did nothing more than tear my shirt. Her body was twisted in an effort to get hold of the ground to turn herself, but the loose sand offered no hold. For a moment there was no change in our positions, and then for the first time I began to think and hope I had a chance to win this curious fight. Up to that time it had been simply a good fight in which I expected to lose, but now if I could keep my advantage perhaps the pony boy would come with a knife. I called, but to no effect. I still held her and continued to shove the hand down her throat so hard she could not close her mouth and with the other I gripped her throat in a strangle hold. Then I surged down on her with my knees. To my surprise I felt a rib go. I did it again. I felt her relax, a sort of letting go, although she was still struggling. At the same time I felt myself weakening similarly, and then it became a question as to which would give up first. Little by little her struggling ceased. My strength had outlasted hers.

After what seemed an interminable passage of time I let go and tried to stand, calling to the pony boy that it was finished. He now screwed up his courage sufficiently to approach. Then the leopard began to gasp, and I saw that she might recover; so I asked the boy for his knife. He had thrown it away in his fear, but quickly found it, and I at last made certain that the beast was dead. As I looked at her later I came to the conclusion that what had saved me was the first shot I had fired when she went into the bush. It had hit her right hind foot. I think it was this broken foot which threw out the aim of her spring and made her get my arm instead of my throat. With the excitement of the battle still on me I did not realize how badly used up I was. I tried to shoulder the leopard to carry it to camp, but was very soon satisfied to confine my efforts to getting myself to camp.

When I came inside the zareba, my companions were at dinner before one of the tents. They had heard the shots and had speculated on the probabilities. They had decided that I was in a mix-up with a lion or with natives, but that I would have the enemy or the enemy would have me before they could get to me; so they had continued their dinner. The fatalistic spirit of the country had prevailed. When I came within their range of vision, however, my appearance was quite sufficient to arrest attention, for my clothes were all ripped, my arm was chewed into an unpleasant sight, and there was blood and dirt all over me. Moreover, my demands for all the antiseptics in camp gave them something to do, for nothing was keener in my mind than that the leopard had been feeding on the diseased hyena that I had shot in the morning. To the practical certainty of blood poisoning from any leopard bite not quickly treated was added the certainty that this leopard's mouth was particularly foul with disease. While my companions were getting the surgical appliances ready, my boys were stripping me and dousing me with cold water. That done, the antiseptic was pumped into every one of the innumerable tooth wounds until my arm was so full of the liquid that an injection in one drove it out of another. During the process I nearly regretted that the leopard had not won. But it was applied so quickly and so thoroughly that it was a complete case.

Later in the evening they brought the leopard in and laid it beside my cot. Her right hind foot showed where the first shot had hit her. The only other bullet that struck her was the last before she charged and that had creased her just under the skin on the back of the neck, from the shock of which she had instantly recovered.