The White Pine news. [volume] (Ely, Nev.) 1906-1910, 1909-07-11
THRILLING TALES
OF THE HUNT
STORIES FROM THE VIEWPOINT
OF DIR. RAINFORD, AN EX-
PERIENCED SPORTSMAN
WRITTEN ON THE SPOT.

After an absence of four years DR..
William S. Rainsford, who spent
fourteen months shooting big game
in the territory in which Mr.. Theo-
dore Roosevelt is nov hunting, ar
rived in New York on June 27. The
following article on DR.. Rainsford
was published in the European ed
ition of the Herald recently:
From the big game country in
British East Africa, where Mr..
Roosevelt is now busy shooting lions,
DR.. w. S. Rainsford, one time rector
of st. Georges church New York has
just returned with many interest
ing tales of that far off country
to relate. DR.. Rainsford, who is now
in Paris, has described some of them
in the Worlds Work" and Out
look" He wrote them on the spot,
sometimes while riding his mule.
sometimes during the MONDAY halt
or on rainy days. DR.. Rainsford
tells his stories from the point of
view of an experienced. sportsman, for
he began to track game when he was
thirteen. He has shot grizzlies in
the Rockies, and made sporting ex-
petitions in California, Eastern Can
ada. Austria and Sardinia. He passed
twelve months shooting big game in
East Africa, on the -Nzola plateau,
THE FIRST LION.
The bagging of his first lion is nat
urally one of DR.. R~ainsford's most
thrilling experiences. 1t was some
twenty miles north of Sergolt. Rid
ing near the edge of the great Nzoia
Valley, he and his native gun bear
ers came upon a group of lions, al
most hidden by a large patch of
thorn, which allowed nothing to be
e but the color of the beasts.
II crawled away from my men,"
says DR.. Rainsford in the Worlds
Work" ,''and sitting up in the grass
here two feet high, where l could
command the side toward the river,
l rested my elbows on my knees and
waited. Was there a big lion among
them? Would they clear at once?
Or would they wait and make sure?
Would they stand? Would they
charge, | had my tense, glorious
moment surely. / could hear the
painting breath of the two men who
had crawled out after me and were
now crouching beside me. And then,
at the last, fortune smiled on me,
indeed. / saw a movement among
the tawny mass. And slowly, cas-
ually, out of the bosom of his fam
lily, he came. =,
"And the lion of my dreams he
seemed. Big and black, with no
common blackness, surely the king
of that wild and beautiful place.
Slowly, on and on, till in the mid
die of the morrow, green grassy aisle
he stood, the sun shining full on his
magnificent coat, and the dark, rich,
low hanging name that covered his
shoulders, Then slowly, carelessly,
he turned his broad black head to-
ward me and shifted the tainted air
that drifted down to him e the
dewy grass. Who shall attempt 10
describe the feelings of the man who,
after long waiting, knows, as he
steadily presses the Yielding trigger
home that he is 'on!' That tri-
umphant instant may be the result
of some dark survival of barbarism
within him: all the same it is 11v-
ing!' 1t is glorious! 1t was mine,
and is part of me forever.
GREAT LONG BOUNDS
"A deep grunting oar answered
the shot, and quickly he swung
round his body, toward where it
came from. AS he did so, | fired