CHAPTER VI

HUNTER

"The longest march seems short," says Baden-Powell, "when one is
hunting game." Many a time, when he has been marching either alone or
with troops, his clothes in tatters, his shoes soleless, and his mouth
as dry as a saucer licked by a cat, many and many a time has he got
out from under the impending shadow of depression, out into the open
sunlight with his rifle,--to forget all about hunger and thirst in
matching his wits against nature's. This kind of wild sport has an
absorbing interest for Baden-Powell. What he would say if invited to
hunt a tame deer, lifted by human arms out of a cart, kicked away from
playing with the hounds and pushed and beaten into an astonished and
bewildered gallop, neither you nor I must pretend to know; but for
that kind of "sport" it is very certain he would express no such
enthusiasm as he does for the keen, wild, dangerous sport of the
legitimate hunter. He will not seek the destruction of any quarry that
is not worthy of his steel; he likes to go against that quarry where
there are obstacles and dangers for him, and opportunities of escape
for the creature he pursues. He is a sportsman, not a butcher;
mole-catching never stirred the blood in his veins.

And while he is hunting animals he is educating himself as a scout.
His whole attention becomes riveted on the game he is pursuing; he
studies the spoor, takes account of the nature of the country, and
makes a note in his mind of any observations likely to be of service
during a campaign in that kind of country. It is not the work of
destruction itself that makes Baden-Powell a keen sportsman.

In the midst of the Matabele war, just as the weary, half-starved
horses which had carried his men eighty-seven miles drew near the
stronghold of Wedza, Baden-Powell was exhilarated by a meeting with a
lion. In his diary against that date he wrote: "To be marked with a
red mark when I can get a red pencil." The incident is well related
in his diary and is a characteristic of B.-P. It runs: "Jackson and a
native boy accompanied me scouting this morning; we three started off
at three in the morning, so that by dawn we were in sight of one of
the hills we expected might be occupied by Paget, and where we hoped
to see his fires. We saw none there; but on our way, in moving round
the hill which overlooks our camp, we saw a match struck high up near
the top of the mountain. This one little spark told us a great deal.
I