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e leopard made for the boulders close at hand. The other was taken out of my tent. I had tied it to the tent pole, but the stout cord snapped like a hair and the darkness swallowed both leopard and its prey before I could as much as reach my rifle to get a shot. "Splendid country for farmin'," Brown remarked, "Splendid. Only you can't keep sheep because the leopards take 'em. You can't keep hens for the same reason. Nor yet cows, because the leopards get the calves--leastways, that's to say unless you watch out awful cautious. Nor yet you can't keep pigeons, 'cause the leopards take them too. I sent to England for fancy pigeons--a dozen of em. Leopards got all but one, so I put him in the loft above my own house, where it seemed to me 'tweren't possible for a leopard to get, supposin' he'd dared. Went away the next day for some shootin', an' lo and behold!--came back that evenin' to discover my cook an' three others carryin' on as if Kingdom Come had took place at last. Never heard or saw such a jamboree. The blamed leopard was up in the loft; and had eaten the pigeon, feathers and all, but couldn't get out again!" "What happened? Nothin'! I was that riled I didn't stop to think--fixed a bayonet on the old Martini the gov'ment supplies to settlers out of the depths of its wisdom an' generosity--climbed up by the same route the leopard took--invaded him--an' skewered him wi' the bayonet in the dark! I wouldn't do it again for a kingdom--but I won't buy more pigeons either!" "What do you raise on your farm, then--pigs?" we asked. "No, the leopards take pigs." "What then?" "Well--as I was explainin' to that Greek Georges Coutlass at Nairobi--there's a way of farmin' out your cattle among the natives that beats keepin' 'em yourself. The natives put 'em in the village pen o' nights; an' besides, they know about the business. "All you need do is give 'em a heifer calf once in a while, and they're contented. I keep a herd o' two hundred cows in a native village not far from my place. The natural increase o' them will make me well-to-do some day." The day before we reached Brown's tiny homestead we heard a lot of shooting over the hill behind us. "That'll be railway men takin' a day off after leopards," announced Brown with the air of a man who can not be mistaken. Nevertheless, Fred and I went back to see, but could make out nothing. We lay on the top of the hill and watched for two or th
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