when the one with the spear stepped to one side and thrust his spear into the lion's neck killing him instantly. He fell at their feet. As the boy withdrew the spear and carefully wiped the blood off on the corner of his breechcloth he remarked to Rainey:
"You see, Master, it is work for a child."
That is how the Masai figured it. But I never have felt so. The first wild lion I ever saw scared me almost to death, and a good many of them have scared me since. The first lions that I saw were in Somaliland.
An oryx hunt had just come to a close. We were about to mount our ponies when one of the black boys pointed. There were three lions walking quietly across a patch of hard, dry sand. They were perhaps a hundred yards away. They looked as big as oxen to me. I had never before seen a lion outside of a cage. We turned our ponies over to the Somali gun boys who galloped after them to round them up. My next view of the lions was when the beaters had gone in to drive them out of a bit of jungle. A roar came from immediately in front of me and I saw a lioness in mid-air as high as my head, springing, thank heaven, diagonally away from me. But she saw me as she sprang and landed facing me. As I fired, a lion jumped over her back, which so disconcerted me that my shot only wounded her. This lion disconcerted her, too, for she followed him. Two more shots at her and she disappeared in another clump of cover with the lions. In our efforts to drive them out of this cover we finally set it on fire. The
