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Show Uie Beasts? 2 Hunters Tafc of the Lion as hp Finds &l. him-Dangprowand CorripmptiDlP . 1 W. Robert Fbrcm COPYPtOHT W 1DGWY CO. V . '' and taken rfug under un-der the nitolllce. Anyway, Any-way, whatever th caimo of Its arrlvul, the fact remulns that It wan very easily caught and adopted by tho jioKtmnBter. Jt Krew into a flnenlzed Hon before It took Himie Billy, rhlldluh. lion complaint and went the way of all of uh. The game warden of the country had two young lion cubi In his garden and tmed them aa peli. Th-y were the two tnoHt playful young-titem young-titem ItiiHginublo and RHtit their nare mo-tiicnts mo-tiicnts Ntulklng any one who might be falling fall-ing on the owner. I remember taking a little lit-tle girl to nee them on oil" occanlon. The two cubg Immediately be-pan be-pan to malk her In a moHt rcnliMle manner, much to her miliar-ranniiient. miliar-ranniiient. Thty died t " v: : tigs MTiy& k I!.-7 4' 'A n- - ;i , v -erv rc j 4 - if big game hunten are dlvld- d In their opinions aa to wi wblcn lll0,it dangerous JFl animal to hunt In Africa. Sfarf.'' Some k loct the Hon, other aaatMal Jfcwla the buffalo, others again the I rhinoceros, while the greater I majority name the elephant v Gttec: 11 18 urel' a ma,ler r wl'lch C animal. In the hunter own yfc'f elerletice, has been tho most Vf 'idm 1""K,'r;,u', iti-l"' iv Personally, a the result of , ft4f vWi jjf many year' experience 1th big game in Africa, I chose the v elephant a the most danger- ou. Perhaps I have been unduly un-duly fortunate In encounters with the lion, and that alone make him appear anything but the "king of beast" that he 1 so popularly supposed to bo. I have Invariably experienced the greatest danger dan-ger In hunting where elephants were concerned. With lion 1 have never bad any serious trouble. In fact I have rather a sneaking contempt for them, for they are harmless except when they are wounded and followed Into the long grass, or In the caso of a lioness with cubs. So great a contempt bnve the men In East Africa for them that they have now taken to hunting them on horseback, riding them down and shooting them with revolvers. 1 shnll endeavor to show why the hunters of Africa look so lightly upon these tawny beasts of the Jungle. I must confess, unless I be misunderstood, mis-understood, thot lions may be us dangerous and even more so than other animals of the plains or forests, under certain circumstances, but It has never ben my lot to experience tiny great danger dan-ger from them. This Is primarily due to an Inborn In-born caution begot as the result of seven years' hunting In the wilderness of tropical Africa. At times there are man eaters at large, but for the most part they are lions that have tasted blood or that aro too old to hunt their natural prey, the zebras. Man eaters are a rarity rather than otherwise In Kant Africa and I ganda. In fact 1 know of only one case where a white man has Iwen eaten eat-en by a Hon during the whole wven years of my residence In East Africa. The story of this Is dreadful enough In Its pitiless detail, but there Is a touch of humor In the story, notwithstanding notwithstand-ing 1 was stationed at a small outlying government post early In 1901, when n native came in one day sod reported that a white man. who had lieen prospecting for land, bad disapiwared and left bis caravan of porters almost starving some days 'march away from my post. I hastened out to search for the man and to relieve the porters from their predicament. On my arrival at the ramp I found that the porters bad no Idea what had become of their master. At first I suspected foul play, but later came to the conclusion that the man had fallen a victim to a prowling beast of the Jungles. I Instituted a close search and eventually found the bend and shoulder of the poor fellow. He had been eaten by a Hon. of that there could be no mistake. Judging by the remain. The remnants of the body were In a bad state of decomposition and I had them placed In a packing-case for burial. On my way to the grave to perform the burial service I was almost overcome over-come with laughter, despite the sad occasion, by observing on the packlng case coffin rtie stenciled sten-ciled words. "Keep In a coed place," "Stow away from the hollers." Tho packing-case had been used to ship can of butter to Hast Africa, hence the painted signs The native occasionally fall victim to the depredations of lions, but the white man rarely does for some unknown reason. Kven then tho death are more often due to gangrene setting In where men have Wen mauled and rarely from actual direct killing I remember well my first meeting with a lion. I wa coming home from a dinner party late at night In Nairobi, the capital of Fast Africa, and had decided to Inspect one of my military guards on the government railway buildings. When I had approached near enough to the sentry to f ear what was going on. I was surprised to hear hltri hanging the corrusated Iron wall of the building with the butt end of his Martini Henri rifle. He was shouting "Shoo: shoo!" at the top of his voice. I ran toward him to discover what was the matter. "Why are you making this noise, you fool?" I cried. "I Hop. sir, very near, eating a zebra," be replied re-plied I ran forward and there, sure enough, was a big black mimed lion, In the bright moonlight, eating a zebra within fifty yards of the sntry. lie bad evidently chased the zebra Into the township, killed It find was now happily taking his supier lie paid n"t tie slUhtcM attention to the sentry's noise, but kept on tearing great masses of flesh from the zebra' carcass, purring loudly all the time like a huge cat. My sjmpathy was with the sentry, for be dare not leave his post and h dare not fire at the lloon. for he wa uncertain as to the accuracy of hi old weapon, which had been condemned for many year by the government and wa now totally unfit for use. Telling the sentry to take advantage of the safety offered Mm at the top of a near by lamppost. lamp-post. I hastened to my house to get my sportlnic rifle In order to do this I had to pas within one hundred yards of the lion, who paid no attention atten-tion to me at all I hurried back to the spot with my trusty rifle and fired at the lion, badly wounding It. lie dashed off into the plains behind be-hind the town, emitting angry rosr a be went. I decided to follow him for a time at least, but after a tiring chase he outdistanced me and I was forced to return to bed Next morning I rode out Into the plain and searched for him. I oon picked up his spoor and In two hours had killed my first lion within few mUe of Nairobi township, lie was a very fine specimen and well worthy of my Initial effort ef-fort In lln hunting I was Justly proud of my achievement, but bad to submit to considerable consider-able amount of good natured chaff from my brother official for being so Veen a to hunt tnf first Hon by moonlight tn the streets of the town. On another ocraslon a young lion cub n found by party of us under the raised floor of the eorrugsted Iron postofflce building In the main street of Nairobi. It bad apparently rome Into town with It mother to view It by night nfl had probably been frightened bf something after a short time In captivity. It often hapcns this way A party of us w-cnt out one Sunday after lions nnd adopted the novel method of riding them down on pony-back. We had not been out long before we "put up" a big tawny fellow and Imrne-dlatily Imrne-dlatily gave chase. There wer four of us In the party and we soon rounded the lion up In fine shape. While one of us fired at him In the open plain with a revolver, wounding him badly, he came to bay, clawing up tho earth In huge patches with his claws and emitting terrifying roars We closed In upon him from nil sides, having much ndo In getting our ponies to face the unusual un-usual situation. One uian rode In close and tired at him with a revolver. Tho Hon was wounded mortally for the second time, but sprang savagely sav-agely at him and seized hi in by the h-p.. We were horrified to see tho Hon drag him off his pony to the ground and rede forward to the res rue. We killed the lion over his body and so saved bis life, but unfortunately our efforts were unavailing, for, after living through an agony of torture for a week or more, he died from gangrene gan-grene poisoning. That It the first and only case where the hunters hunt-ers have Buffered from this new and Invigorating form of sKirt. It beats pig sticking as an exciting excit-ing form of sport and Is Infinitely more enervating enervat-ing than shooting lions by approved methods of bunting There Is something In the wild ride Bnd the attendant risk which Is altogether fascinating fasci-nating and Irresistible for most men who have once tried this method of lion hunting Qult a number of Hons bnve fallen victim In the field as the result of this new plan of attack at-tack In fact, the game warden ha no less than four lions to his credit from this method of killing kill-ing alone, to say nothing of the numbers which have fallen to his rifle by the accepted form of slaying 1 was In the Sotik rounrrr one day. trailing out to Inspect a detachment of my force, who were on outpost duty. I was nlone, about an hour's march ahead of my porters and escort nnd. It being very hot, I decided to sit stid rest until my caravan came up with me I saw a lame and shadv bush a short distance from my trail nnd decided that this would be a very suitable spot to rest. I went over to It and thr"w myself under un-der Its welcome shade. Then I took n satisfying satisfy-ing drink from my water bottle and filled rnv pipe. I must have sat there for over an hour, smoking nnd thinking of what I should do when I reached Imdon for my six months' holiday, which ! wl'hin measurable distance I thought of no danger and smoked and built castl. s In the air. In duo' course rny porters hove In slcht and as they approached they beenn to sing lustily. Suddenly from behind me something some-thing big moved. There was an Instant's swishing swish-ing of the grass and the cracking of twigs and then, lo and behold, a big black mnned Hon bound rd away from the other side of the bush! I was too astonished to fire and could only stare after It. open-mouthed with astonishment. I do not know to thl day what had really happened, but I suspect that the Hon had been asleep In the shade on the other side of the bush, as unaware of my presence a I wa of hi It wa certainly a remarkable experience and a laughable one, although. In all conscience. It might have ended very differently My native porters snd servants were firmly convinced that I had the evil eye and therefore the lion would not attack me. Nothing conld shake their faith In my fower over the "king of beast" If I had known of the proximity of thl wonderfully fine specimen. speci-men. I should certainly not have sat down nd moked so unconcernedly beside the thorn bush At Muliorrml station In the Nyando valley, near Ike Victoria. In the latter part of H 1 in taking stroll out from the camp when the sun had rooled off In the evening I knew tht no Hon were ever een In thl vicinity and so did not bother to take a gun with me My port-Ing port-Ing little foxterrler, "Micky Doolan." kept me company . I turned my footstep toward email stream about a mile and a half from the camp On arrival ar-rival at the bank of the almost dried up river. I Blood for a while watching a young reed buck gamboling with Ita mother. Micky Loolao chased Imaginary rats with deep content- Suddenly the long gracs ou the opposite bank moved apart and a graceful young lioness stepped out Into tho open! was coiihldi-nilily taken aback, for I had no means of offense or defense; moreover, slm was less than u stone's throw away from me I looked lit her and she looked at me Then ns quietly as she hud come, she departed My dog bad run toward me meanwhile ami caught a glimpse of the limiesH disappearing In the long grass lie dashed afte r I r. and I had much ado to recall htm The lioness crushed off lit a gallop gal-lop Info tho plains' and that was the last I saw of her. It was certainly a llltle uwettiug unit quite spoiled my afternoon' stroll. Needless to say I returned to my camp and next time I took a stroll I carried my gun with me. It Is strango that the lioness should have been In these parts, for never before had one been seen in that neighborhood. neigh-borhood. However, a few days later I left Muhoronl to run Into Klsumu forty tulles away. I traveled by a hand -propelled trolley on the railway The trl weekly passenger train from the const to tho lake bad preceded me by a bare fifteen minutes. I -ess than three tulles out of Muhoronl station, as we were descending a dip In the railway, I noticed something on the track. Wo were approaching ap-proaching It at a high rate of sx-cd and I could not at first make out what it was Suddenly, when only about sixty yards away, two young lionesses got up slowly from the track, where they were lazily stretching themselves, and climbed the bank beside tho track! I bad only a shotgun and did not dare fire at them, for I had only small bird-shot with me and only two shells In all. I shouted to my native trolley boy to make the machine travel at II highest speed and they stuck to their work like heroes. We dashed past the two lionesses and began our ascent of the rise Luckily tho two cats did not attempt to follow or n'tnek us As far s I know, these are the only two occasions occa-sions on which lion have been seen In this section sec-tion of the country Hut all my many encounters have not been so easy as these. On some occasions they have shown fight In a most determined manner One In particular gave me some very anxious moment mo-ment I was out bunting meat and picked up the fresh trail of a lion I decided to follow and In due course came up with Mm He was a fine, unmaiu-d specimen and n full grown one I cast envious eye upon his hide nnd decided, como what might, to add hi in to my trophies Then began a bard stalk The Hon would daili off at a great speed nnd then disappear In the long grass I would follow as fast as I could, snd on reaching the spot where I bad last seen him. would advance with great caution Then he would spring out and dash off ngaln This wa rfpented several times and It tired me and so I lost patience I exayed a long shot and hit him , lie disappeared In the long grass with a roar of pain and anger I advanced carefully, keeping a watchful eye for possible developments I could see and hear where he was, but could not rt him to corne out Into the open 1 knew that It was supreme folly to follow him Into the long grass- In fact It was courting certain death. I decided to burn him out My porter and myself set fire to the long rras and then I stood ready to kill a the big beast d'tihed for safety Suddenly with a mighty roar he cam,, hounding hound-ing In huge leaps toward me. fired straight at his chest and raked him through the entire length of bis body I fired a second shot and still he came on. although be was mortally wounded. My gun bearer banded me my ond gun and I fired again quickly, thl tlm Mi'lng him. Ill huge body fell with a crash a!mtt at my fet and I was able to breathe again fr-!y ft had j been a very exciting few minute n1 at one time i It looked a If the Hon might win. The skin ii ruined a far a being a good specimen was concerned, for my shots had seriously damared It However, he mde a bully trophy and I was quite pleased with the results of my shoot If I had followed him Into the long grass I should most certainly have been badly mauled so thst I must have d'ed either from shock or from gangrene gan-grene po'Bon'nK Nearly every man who has died at the band of a Hon bss done so a the result of following a wounded lion Into cover foolishly- |