Page:In brightest Africa.djvu/91

 fired again, and again the bushes moved toward us. Finally the old fellow was so close to the edge of the brush that while we couldn't see him he undoubtedly could see us. He stood looking out on thirty black men and two white men in front of a great fire—a crowd of his enemies. The path was not blocked in any other direction. He looked us over carefully for fully five minutes and then of his own volition, with a great roar, he charged out of the brush and up from the pot hole. Halfway up the slope the fatal bullet hit him. He was killed charging his enemies and without thought of retreat—the first black-maned lion ever shot in British East Africa.

He was old and had been through various vicissitudes. At one time he had had a leg broken but it had healed perfectly. The tip of his tail was gone also. But for all that he was a great specimen.

These two instances are fair examples of the usual method of hunting lions in British East Africa. Riding after them on horseback might be considered a different method than the beating, but as a matter of fact, the two merge into each other. When beating, the lion hunter usually rides until he actually reaches the lion's cover, and if he runs on to a lion in the open he rides after it until the superior speed of the horse over any fair distance forces the lion to stop and lie down at bay. And, likewise, if one is riding after lions and the lion gets into cover, the game is up unless there are beaters to get him out.

Paul Rainey introduced an added element to the horseback method of lion hunting when he imported