ng without
actually covering much territory.

One of my gunbearers suddenly clutched my arm and pointed into the
reeds. There, only a few feet away, was the tawny figure of a lion,
either lying down or crouching. I fired and nearly blew its head off. It
was the one I had wounded a few minutes before.

[Drawing: _Photographed in Times of Danger_]

There was still the other lion in the reeds. So I joined the beaters
while Stephenson came out and took a commanding position at the side of
the reeds. In a moment or two there was a tawny flash and the lion was
seen as it broke from the reeds and sprang away up the hill. It was on
the opposite side of the reeds from Stephenson, but his first shot hit
it and it stopped and turned angrily. In another instant it would have
charged, but a second shot from his rifle killed it instantly. Both of
the animals were young lionesses of the same age and nearly full grown.

Sometimes, when a lion is driven to bay in the tall grass at the end of
a swamp, the beaters refuse to advance, and it then becomes necessary
for the hunter to go in and take the lead. An occasion of this sort was
among the most thrilling of my African experiences.

An immense swamp had been beaten out and nothing had developed until the
beaters were almost at the end of the swamp. Extending from the end and
joining it was a patch of wire-like reeds, eight or ten feet high and
covering two or three acres. This high grass was almost impenetrable by
a man, and it was only possible to go through it by throwing one's
weight forward and crushing down the dense growth. The grass grew from
hummocks, between which were deep water channels. An animal could glide
through these channels, but a man must batter his way through the
stockade of dense grass that spread out above.

It was in this place that the lion was first heard and the beaters
refused to follow it in. Guttural grunts and snarls came from that
uninviting jungle, and we knew that the only way to force the lion out
was to go in and drive it out.

At about this time another lion came out of the swamp behind and loped
up the hill. The saises were sent galloping after it to round it up, but
they reappeared after a few moments and reported that it had got away in
the direction of a huge swamp a mile or so beyond. We began to think we
had struck a nest of lions.

Then we went in to drive out that lion in the deep grass. The native
beaters, encouraged by seeing arme