nd scrambled up with amazing rapidity. He was knocked out
of it again quite as quickly by the shock of the tremendous charge made
by the buffalo, which almost split its skull, and rolled over dead at
the tree-root, shot right through the heart.

Meanwhile Tom Brown and the lieutenant had overtaken and killed the
other animal, so that they returned to camp well laden with the best
part of the meat of three buffaloes.

Here, while resting after the toils of the day, beside the roaring
camp-fires, and eating their well-earned supper, Hicks the trader told
them that a native had brought news of a desperate attack by lions on a
kraal not more than a day's journey from where they lay.

"It's not far out o' the road," said Hicks, who was a white man--of what
country no one knew--with a skin so weather-beaten by constant exposure
that it was more like leather than flesh; "if you want some sport in
that way, I'd advise 'ee to go there to-morrow."

"Want some sport in that way!" echoed Wilkins in an excited tone; "why,
what do you suppose we came here for? _Of course_ we'll go there at
once; that is, if my comrades have no objection."

"With all my heart," said the major with a smile as he carefully filled
his beloved pipe.

Tom Brown said nothing; but he smoked his pipe quietly, and nodded his
head gently, and felt a slight but decided swelling of the heart, as he
murmured inwardly to himself, "Yes, I'll have a slap at the lions
to-morrow."

CHAPTER THREE.

IN WHICH GREAT DEEDS ARE DONE, AND TOM BROWN HAS A NARROW ESCAPE.

But Tom was wrong. Either the report had been false, or the lions had a
special intimation that certain destruction approached them; for our
hunters waited two nights at the native kraal without seeing one,
although the black king thereof stoutly affirmed that they had attacked
the cattle enclosures nearly every night for a week past, and committed
great havoc.

One piece of good fortune, however, attended them, which was that they
unexpectedly met with the large party which the major had expressed his
wish to join. It consisted of about thirty men, four of whom were
sportsmen, and the rest natives, with about twenty women and children,
twelve horses, seventy oxen, five wagons, and a few dogs; all under the
leadership of a trader named Hardy.

Numerous though the oxen were, there were not too many of them, as the
reader may easily believe when we tell him that the wagons were very
large,