that satisfied her and sent my heart into my boots.
Then he turned, sprang down behind the hillock, and she followed. The
next I saw of them they were running away like dogs, jumping low
bushes and heading for jungle on the near horizon faster than I had
imagined lions could travel.

That ended my desire for further exercise and solitude. I made for the
hotel as fast as fear of seeming afraid would let me, and spent fifteen
aggravating minutes on the veranda trying to persuade Fred Oakes that I
had truly seen lions.

"Hyenas!" he said with the air of an old hunter, to which he was quite
entitled, but that soothed me all the less for that.

"More likely jackals," said Will; and he was just as much as Fred
entitled to an opinion.

While I was asserting the facts with increasing anger, and they were
amusing themselves with a hundred-and-one ridiculous reasons for
disbelieving me, Lady Saffren Waldon came. She had, as usual,
attracted to herself able assistance; a settler's ox-cart brought her
belongings, and she and her maid rode in hammocks borne by porters
impressed from heaven knew where. It was not far from the station, but
she was the type of human that can not be satisfied with meek
beginnings. That type is not by any means always female, but the
women are the most determined on their course, and come the biggest
croppers on occasion.

She was determined now, mistress of the situation and of her plans.
She left to her maid the business of quarreling about accommodations;
(there was little left to choose from, and all was bare and bad);
dismissed the obsequious settler and his porters with perfunctory
thanks that left him no excuse for lingering, and came along the
veranda straight toward us with the smile of old acquaintance, and such
an air of being perfectly at ease that surprise was disarmed, and the
rudeness we all three intended died stillborn.

"What do you think of the country?" she asked. "Men like it as a rule.
Women detest it, and who can blame them? No comfort--no manners--no
companionship--no meals fit to eat--no amusement! Have you killed
anything or anybody yet? That always amuses a man!"

We rose to make room for her and I brought her a chair. There was
nothing else one could do. There is almost no twilight in that part of
East Africa; until dark there is scarcely a hint that the day is
waning. She sat with us for twenty or thirty minutes making small
talk, her maid watching us f