ep a neutral zone around ourselves by
tossing stones ahead of and on both sides of our line of advance. My own
position was not bad, for I had the rifle ready in my hand, but the men
were in danger. Of course I was protecting them as well as I could, but
there was always a chance that the lioness might spring on them in such
a manner that I would be unable to use my weapon. Once I suggested that
as the work was dangerous, they could quit if they wanted to.

"Hapana!" they both refused indignantly.

We had proceeded thus for half a mile when to our relief, right ahead of
us, sounded the commanding, rumbling half-roar, half-growl of the lion
at bay.

Instantly Memba Sasa and Mavrouki dropped back to me. We all peered
ahead. One of the boys made her out first, crouched under a bush
thirty-two yards away. Even as I raised the rifle she saw us and
charged. I caught her in the chest before she had come ten feet. The
heavy bullet stopped her dead. Then she recovered and started forward
slowly, very weak, but game to the last. Another shot finished her.

The remarkable point of this incident was the action of the little
Springfield bullet. Evidently the very high velocity of this bullet
from its shock to the nervous system had delivered a paralyzing blow
sufficient to knock out the lioness for the time being. Its damage to
tissue, however, was slight. Inasmuch as the initial shock did not cause
immediate death, the lioness recovered sufficiently to be able, two
hours later, to take the offensive. This point is of the greatest
interest to the student of ballistics; but it is curious to even the
ordinary reader.

That is a very typical example of finding lions by sheer chance.
Generally a man is out looking for the smallest kind of game when he
runs up against them. Now happened to follow an equally typical example
of tracking.

The next day after the killing of the lioness Memba Sasa, Kongoni and I
dropped off the bench, and hunted greater kudu on a series of terraces
fifteen hundred feet below. All we found were two rhino, some sing-sing,
a heard of impalla, and a tremendous thirst. In the meantime, Mavrouki
had, under orders, scouted the foothills of the mountain range at the
back. He reported none but old tracks of kudu, but said he had seen
eight lions not far from our encounter of the day before.

Therefore, as soon next morning as we could see plainly, we again
crossed the canyon and the waist-deep stream. I had wi