ir unexpected size. They seemed to
bulk fully a third larger than my expectation.

The magnificent beasts stood only long enough to see clearly what had
disturbed them, then turned, and in two bounds had gained the shelter of
the thicket.

Now the habit in Africa is to let your gunbearers carry all your guns.
You yourself stride along hand free. It is an English idea, and
is pretty generally adopted out there by every one, of whatever
nationality. They will explain it to you by saying that in such a
climate a man should do only necessary physical work, and that a
good gunbearer will get a weapon into your hand so quickly and in so
convenient a position that you will lose no time. I acknowledge the
gunbearers are sometimes very skilful at this, but I do deny that there
is no loss of time. The instant of distracted attention while receiving
a weapon, the necessity of recollecting the nervous correlations
after the transfer, very often mark just the difference between a sure
instinctive snapshot and a lost opportunity. It reasons that the man
with the rifle in his hand reacts instinctively, in one motion, to get
his weapon into play. If the gunbearer has the gun, HE must first react
to pass it up, the master must receive it properly, and THEN, and not
until then, may go on from where the other man began. As for physical
labour in the tropics: if a grown man cannot without discomfort or evil
effects carry an eight-pound rifle, he is too feeble to go out at all.
In a long Western experience I have learned never to be separated from
my weapon; and I believe the continuance of this habit in Africa saved
me a good number of chances.

At any rate, we all flung ourselves off our horses. I, having my
rifle in my hand, managed to throw a shot after the biggest lion as he
vanished. It was a snap at nothing, and missed. Then in an opening on
the edge a hundred yards away appeared one of the lionesses. She was
trotting slowly, and on her I had time to draw a hasty aim. At the shot
she bounded high in the air, fell, rolled over, and was up and into the
thicket before I had much more than time to pump up another shell from
the magazine. Memba Sasa in his eagerness got in the way-the first and
last time he ever made a mistake in the field.

By this time the others had got hold of their weapons. We fronted the
blank face of the thicket.

The wounded animal would stand a little waiting. We made a wide circle
to the other side of the