ene lay bared to view. The lion had leaped upon a hartebeest,
probably instantly breaking its neck, while the rest of the herd had
galloped away in terror. And it had all happened within two or three
hundred yards of the tree--yet nothing could be seen.

At two o'clock the grunt of a lion was again heard far off to the south.
It came steadily toward us, and at last there was no doubt about its
destination. It was coming to the bait. How my eyes strained to pierce
the darkness and how breathlessly I waited with rifle in readiness! But
the lion only paused at the bait, and as I waited for it to settle down
to its feast it went grunting away and the chance was gone. Perhaps it
had already fed, or perhaps it was an unusually fastidious lion which
desired to do its own killing.

An hour or two later, both gunbearers asleep and one snoring peacefully,
I became aware of a large animal feeding at the bait. Although no sound
had preceded its coming, I thought it might be a lion, but feared that
it was a hyena. I fired at the dark, shifting, black shadow and the roar
of the big rifle shattered the silence like a clap of unexpected
thunder. Then there was such a dense silence that it seemed to ring in
one's ears.

Had I hit or missed? That could not be decided until daybreak, for it is
the height of folly to climb down from a tree to feel the pulse of a
wounded lion.

When daybreak came we made an investigation. Only the mangled remains of
the carcass lay below. Later in the day some members of our party came
across the dead body of a hyena lying about a hundred yards from the
tree, partly hidden by a little clump of bushes. Its backbone was
shattered by a .475 bullet.

Thus ended my first and only adventure in the "tree method."

The boma method is slightly more dangerous and much more exciting. A lot
of thorn branches are twisted together in a little circle, within which
the hunter sits and waits for his lion. As in the tree method, a bait is
placed near the boma, twelve or fifteen yards away, and a little
loophole is arranged in the tangle of thorn branches through which the
rifle may be trained upon the bait.

[Drawing: _The Boma Method_]

The lion can not get into the boma unless he jumps up and comes in from
the top. It is the function of the hunter to prevent this strategic
manoeuver by killing the lion before he gets in. If he does not, he is
likely to find himself engaged in a spirited hand-to-hand fight with an