legs,
with the fourth broken close to the shoulder, while Grosvenor, stepping
back hurriedly in the long grass to avoid her, was tripped up and fell
flat upon his back. Fearing that, despite her broken leg, the lioness
might spring upon his prostrate friend and badly maul him, Dick
impetuously sprang forward, injecting a new cartridge as he ran, but
stopped short, convulsed with laughter, at the sight of his friend, his
long legs flourishing in the air, rolling with frantic energy out of the
reach of the lioness. Then, as Grosvenor finally scrambled to his feet,
minus his rifle, which he had dropped during his hurried retreat--while
Jantje had incontinently bolted, carrying Grosvenor's second rifle with
him, as the lioness sprang--Dick again levelled his piece and bowled the
great tawny brute over with a bullet behind the ear, which penetrated
the brain.

Thus satisfactorily terminated the adventurers' first experience with
big game, each of the sportsmen bagging a lion and lioness, while the
cub might be regarded as the joint property of the two. A very
satisfactory feature of the day's sport was that nobody had received so
much as a scratch, the actual casualties amounting to two Kafir dogs
slain. As for the Kafirs, they fell upon the carcasses and with
incredible rapidity and skill stripped off the hides and pegged them out
preparatory to treating them in the native fashion, afterwards removing
the heads and carefully depositing each in the near vicinity of an ants'
nest, in order that the insects might remove--as they very speedily
would--every atom of flesh from the bones. Then, having rendered this
service to the champions who had delivered them from their formidable
enemies, they departed, dancing, to the village, singing a triumphant
song to the glory of the white men, in which each incident of the recent
hunt was graphically described with appropriate gesture.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

THE MAKOLO COUNTRY.

A full week was spent by the travellers among those friendly villagers,
during which Dick Maitland assiduously tended the wounded man, who by
the end of that time, thanks in part to his own healthy flesh and blood,
the result of simple, frugal living, and, more largely, to the young
doctor's skilful treatment, had advanced so far toward recovery that
nature might safely be left to complete the cure. The week had been not
altogether unprofitably spent in other respects, the two white men
assiduously dev