t a soda-water bottle; and to do this requires nerve, at least
as much as it does physical address. Having reached this point, the
hunter must not imagine that he is warranted in taking desperate
chances. There are degrees in proficiency; and what is a warrantable and
legitimate risk for a man to take when he has reached a certain grade of
efficiency may be a foolish risk for him to take before he has reached
that grade. A man who has reached the degree of proficiency indicated
above is quite warranted in walking in at a lion at bay, in an open
plain, to, say, within a hundred yards. If the lion has not charged, the
man ought at that distance to knock him over and prevent his charging;
and if the lion is already charging, the man ought at that distance to
be able to stop him. But the amount of prowess which warrants a man
in relying on his ability to perform this feat does not by any means
justify him in thinking that, for instance, he can crawl after a wounded
lion into thick cover. I have known men of indifferent prowess to
perform this latter feat successfully, but at least as often they have
been unsuccessful, and in these cases the result has been unpleasant.
The man who habitually follows wounded lions into thick cover must be
a hunter of the highest skill, or he can count with certainty on an
ultimate mauling.

The first two or three bucks I ever saw gave me buck fever badly, but
after I had gained experience with ordinary game I never had buck fever
at all with dangerous game. In my case the overcoming of buck fever
was the result of conscious effort and a deliberate determination
to overcome it. More happily constituted men never have to make this
determined effort at all--which may perhaps show that the average
man can profit more from my experiences than he can from those of the
exceptional man.

I have shot only five kinds of animals which can fairly be called
dangerous game--that is, the lion, elephant, rhinoceros, and buffalo
in Africa, and the big grizzly bear a quarter of a century ago in the
Rockies. Taking into account not only my own personal experience, but
the experiences of many veteran hunters, I regard all the four African
animals, but especially the lion, elephant, and buffalo, as much more
dangerous than the grizzly. As it happened, however, the only narrow
escape I personally ever had was from a grizzly, and in Africa the
animal killed closest to me as it was charging was a rhinoceros--all of