The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-04-12

No. 2. who as soon as we began to APP
proach him looked about as ugly Cor as
grand as one could wish. We ad-
vanced cautiously and moved to the
right as we went so as to get the light
at our backs The lion twisted round in
| the grass and kept facing US, and I
knew that unless he was disabled at the
first shot he would be at US like a whirl-
wind. Even so, felt confident that one
of US would stop him before he could
get home, but in this I was whong, as
the story will show.
We got to within eighty yards of the
growing beast in the following order,
self leading and about five yards to the
left front of S., who was followed by
Bhoota at about the same distance to
the right rear. BY this time the lion
was furious, and raised quite a dust by
lashing his tail 1t was quite time we
! did something, so asking S. to fire /
knelt and waited. l was not kept long,
for the moment S. fired up jumped the
lion and made a bee line for me. coming
in long, low bounds at great speed. l
fired the right barrel at about fifty
yards without effect; the left at TWEEN
| ty-five ytrds, apparently missed again.
In the meantime my gunbearer Oman
DIM who stood firm as rock, had only
time to say, 'Sahb, sher alta, alta, alta,
agya." ("Master, the lion Is coming, Is
coming, is fBere'D; andoso he was, and
he would have had me next spring had
not Bhoota moved and fired, thereby at
lracting his attention. To my astonish-
ment the lion turned, and as thought,
made for s., but he passed him, and,
with fearful bound, seized Bhoota by
the leg and carried him with him for
some yards In the impetus of tho rush,
finally standing over Bhoota and trying
| to seize his throat
| The brave fellow, however prevented
this by stuffing his left arm into the en-
| ragged animals mouth, shouting to us,
Marc, marc" ("Kill him, kill him').
Then S. did what only reckless Irish
man in a moment of excitement would
| do, viz. rushed up to the side of the lion
and tried to push him off Che wanted to
get the spare heavy gun which Bhoota
tightly gripped and would not let go)
| Fortunately S. did not come within
view of the lion, who never noticed him,
as in his rage and fury he mauled away
\ at Bhoota's arm. All this that has
taken so long to describe occurred in a
couple of seconds; in fact, ] only waited
to reload one barrel before rushing to
| Bhoota's rescue. Unfortunately, from
the position was in I had to run up in
full view Of the lion, as he faced
| straight In my direction. The moment
| 4 reached his Head he stopped chewing
the arm (although he still kept 1t in his
MOUTH and exposed his long tusks in
nasty snarl. 1 knew that l had not
moment to spare, so I threw the rifle up
and pulled the trigke;. Imagine my
horror when 1t did not go off. Misfre
again I thought Il had had one before
when at close quarters with a man
eater), and stepped back slowly, intend
ing to reload, if ! were given the
chance-which l never expected-to do
so. I watched the lions eyes and they
fairly bfazed green and red; had taken
two backward PAGES, and saw that he
was gathering himself for a spring,
when III suddenly struck me that I had
not cockedA the rife after loading. To
do so and blow out his brains was the
work of an instant. He dropped dead
on top of Bhoote, whose arm we had to
disengage before rolling the ilion off.
We roughly examined Bhoota, and
found that htsf1eft arm and right leg
were frightfully mauled the latter be-
ing broken. we lifted him tenderly
into the tonga, blessing ourselves for
having brought It, and S. hurried off to
camp and the doctor. I hastily exam
ined the lion and found him to be a re-
markedly big one. l had the satisfac-
ton of seeing that one of my shots had
taken eect as he charged down on me.
1t entered just below the right eye,
missed the brain and, traversing the
body, came out at the left flank. 1t was
steel bullet, which S. unluckily had
few of and brought by mistake in his
ammunition bag that day. STILL one
would have imagined that raking
shot like this from a twelve-bore would
at least have given the lion a severe
check. 1t did not, however, have the
slightest stopping effect. My last bull
let (soft lead) had entered close to the
right eye and imbedded itself in the
brain.
1t was almost quite dark by this
time, so I left the dead lions where they
had fallen and rode for camp, which 1
was lucky enough to reach without fur |
t1er incident. / might mention here
that early next morning two other lions
were found eating the one shot first.
Fortunately Bhoota's lion was intact |
That skin will prabably be with Row
land Ward in day or two; the mutila- !
ted skin is with that celebrated natural
list at the present moment
To return to Bhoota. On my arrival |
at camp l found DR.. Mace. doing every
thing possible for him, and his wounds
were soon skillfully dressed, the broken
leg put in a splint and under the influ-
ence of a soothing draft he was soon
peacefully sleeping We all had great
hopes of saving both leg and life, and /
for some time he seemed to be getting
on as well as possible, but the wounds
were bad ones, especially in the leg,
where the long tusks had met through
and through. The arm, although badly
soon healed. 1t was wonderful
to see how cheerfully the old boy took
1t all, and pleasure to listen as he told