is ever "cool"
in the sense that personal danger is of the same kind of indifference
to him as clambering aboard a street car. He must always be lifted
above himself, must enter an extra normal condition to meet extra normal
circumstances. He can always control his conduct; but he can by no
means always determine the way the inevitable excitement will affect his
coordinations. And unfortunately, in the final result it does not matter
how brave a man is, but how closely he can hold. If he finds that his
nervous excitement renders him unsteady, he has no business ever to
tackle dangerous game alone. If, on the other hand, he discovers that
IDENTICALLY THE SAME nervous excitement happens to steady his front
sight to rocklike rigidity-a rigidity he could not possibly attain in
normal conditions-then he will probably keep out of trouble.

To amplify this further by a specific instance: I hunted for a short
time in Africa with a man who was always eager for exciting encounters,
whose pluck was admirable in every way, but whose nervous reaction so
manifested itself that he was utterly unable to do even decent shooting
at any range. Furthermore, his very judgment and power of observation
were so obscured that he could not remember afterward with any accuracy
what had happened-which way the beast was pointing, how many there were
of them, in which direction they went, how many shots were fired, in
short all the smaller details of the affair. He thought he remembered.
After the show was over it was quite amusing to get his version of
the incident. It was almost always so wide of the fact as to be little
recognizable. And, mind you, he was perfectly sincere in his belief, and
absolutely courageous. Only he was quite unfitted by physical make-up
for a big game hunter; and I was relieved when, after a short time, his
route and mine separated.

Well, we clambered up that slope with a fine compound of tension,
expectation, and latent uneasiness as to just what was going to happen,
anyway. Finally, we raised the backs of the beasts, stooped, sneaked a
little nearer, and finally at a signal stood upright perhaps forty yards
from the brutes.

For the first time I experienced a sensation I was destined many times
to repeat-that of the sheer size of the animals. Menagerie rhinoceroses
had been of the smaller Indian variety; and in any case most menagerie
beasts are more or less stunted. These two, facing us, their little eyes
blinking,