th me all three of
the gun men, and in addition two of the most courageous porters to help
with the tracking and the looking.

About eight o'clock we found the first fresh pad mark plainly outlined
in an isolated piece of soft earth. Immediately we began that most
fascinating of games-trailing over difficult ground. In this we could
all take part, for the tracks were some hours old, and the cover scanty.
Very rarely could we make out more than three successive marks. Then we
had to spy carefully for the slightest indication of direction. Kongoni
in especial was wonderful at this, and time and again picked up a broken
grass blade or the minutest inch-fraction of disturbed earth. We moved
slowly, in long hesitations and castings about, and in swift little
dashes forward of a few feet; and often we went astray on false scents,
only to return finally to the last certain spot. In this manner we
crossed the little plain with the scattered shrub trees and arrived at
the edge of the low bluff above the stream bottom.

This bottom was well wooded along the immediate bank of the stream
itself, fringed with low thick brush, and in the open spaces grown to
the edges with high, green, coarse grass.

As soon as we had managed to follow without fault to this grass, our
difficulties of trailing were at an end. The lions' heavy bodies
had made distinct paths through the tangle. These paths went forward
sinuously, sometimes separating one from the other, sometimes
intertwining, sometimes combining into one for a short distance. We
could not determine accurately the number of beasts that had made them.

"They have gone to drink water," said Memba Sasa.

We slipped along the twisting paths, alert for indications; came to the
edge of the thicket, stooped through the fringe, and descended to the
stream under the tall trees. The soft earth at the water's edge was
covered with tracks, thickly overlaid one over the other. The boys felt
of the earth, examined, even smelled, and came to the conclusion that
the beasts must have watered about five o'clock. If so, they might be
ten miles away, or as many rods.

We had difficulty in determining just where the party left this place,
until finally Kongoni caught sight of suspicious indications over the
way. The lions had crossed the stream. We did likewise, followed the
trail out of the thicket, into the grass, below the little cliffs
parallel to the stream, back into the thicket, across the rive