up again, but was immediately hit by Captain D.'s.350 Magnum and brought
to a halt. The dogs, seeing her turn tail and hearing our shots, had
scrambled madly after her. We dared not shoot again for fear of hitting
one of them, so we dashed rapidly into the grass and out the other side.
Before we could get to her, she had sent Ruby flying through the air,
and had then fallen over dead. Ruby got off lucky with only a deep gash
the length of her leg.

This was the only instance I experienced of a wounded lion showing the
white feather. She was, however, only about three-quarters grown, and
was suffering from diarrhoea.




XXIII.

THE BIG LION.


The boys skinned her while we ate lunch. Then we started several of them
back towards camp with the trophy, and ourselves cut across country to a
small river known as the Stony Athi. There we dismounted from our
horses, and sent them and the boys atop the ridge above the stream,
while we ourselves explored afoot the hillside along the river.

This was a totally different sort of country from that to which we had
been accustomed. Imagine a very bouldery hillside planted thickly with
knee-high brambles and more sparsely with higher bushes. They were not
really brambles, of course, but their tripping, tangling, spiky