The Elbert County tribune., 1909-05-06

steal forward until the lion is sighted
or ringed In q small clump of bush.
II being taken on, how pleasant Il IL
to sit In the shade, listening to the
excited talk OF the natives, and let
ting your nerves quiet down again
after the hopes and fears OF the morn
Ing. You ride home to camp with the
lion skin behind your saddle. while
| one OF your men after another gives
his version OF the mornings proceed
ings in a hunting song. On the other
hand. when you get a shot, and miss
after a long and difficult track, It
seems as II any number OF lions killed
In the future will never make up for
the loss of this one. which is always
| the biggest lion. carrying the finest
name you have ever seen. The ride
home to camp is then silent one, m
| no lion means no sheep for the men,
and they are correspondingly down.
hearted.
The first thing to be done In track.
Ing Is to find fresh spocr Natives
will often bring news OF spoor, but
unluckily the average villagers idea
| Of q fresh track Is rather hazy.
have several times gone a long way
to find at the end track several days
old. On one occasion two natives
| arrived, saying there were fresh lion
tracks In river-bed. luckily not more
that half n mile from camp. but whom
| we got there tho fresh lion tracks
turned out to be the spoo. of two hy-
enas. at least a week old.
The spoor OF the large spotted
| hyena is not unlike that Of q lioness
on certain ground. but the difference
can easily be told, because hyena
has claws like a dog, whereas the re-
| tractive claws OF q lion are slvayp
sheathed and leave no Lark. Tho boat
way to find spoor is to look for II
yourself with good trackers. Should
there be any villages near camp
which lions have been In the nabit
OF raiding It is very necessary to get
there as early as possible in the
morning. II once the large focks OF
sheep and goats and herds of camels
which have been shut u, In the VII.
lagos all Eight are let out. the ground
all about Is a mass OF ind. stiuguish-
able footprints. and ever rath from
the village is choked with long strings
of beasts going on to their feeding
grounds. Hitting on lions spoor
under these circumstances is almost
impossible. and the dust raised ~ the
herds Is very disagreeable.
| Besides villages, any we'll In tho
neighborhood is q good place to look
for spoor. II a lion is about there
ought to be no difilculty In picking up
his spoor within n day or two.
Battling Ways of the Jungle Folk.
Rather curious Condolences are
sometimes brought to Hight by spoor.
Not very long after the date OF the
story Just related. one Of our party
went to a place where two lions had
been killing regularly. and sat up two
nights for them with donkey as bait.
The lions must have left the district
for a day or two while he was there.
as there were no fresh tracks to be
found anywhere about. The day after
he came back to camp I happened to
ride out In that direction. Soon after
we started we came on the spoor Of
two lions, which led us along a path
till we came to the shooting zereba.
The night after he had left. the lions
had walked over the very spot where
his donkey had been tied up In the
middle Of the path.
A little later. again, happened to
be at q place where he had camped
few days before. A lion roared near
my camp several times In the night,
and next morning I heard he had
taken a sheep from village close by.
We picked up his spoor In river
bed near the camp. and after follow
Ing 1t for some distance came to some
wells. The lion had drunk twice, and
between the drinks had laid down
under the fence of a shooting zereba,
which had been made to watch the
water. After drinking the second
time he had gone away.
Now and then when tracking You
come across places where lions have
killed. and II 1t is on sand or bare
soil, you can tell everything that has
happened almost as well as II you
had seen 1t. We we're camped once
on the edge Of river-bed and thick
covert ran right down to the back Of
the camp. One night there was .
tremendous scufiiing In these bushes,
SO In the morning went out to SEQ
what had been going on. and found
that two lions had been chasing .
warthog. which had Just saved its
bacon by getting underground. It
must have been a very near thing.
as the lions had ploughed great fur
rows In the sand at the mouth of the
hole. showing they had pulled up pret-
ty sharp. Warthogs generally go to
ground when pursued. and as there II
no second opening to the burrows. and
presumably no chamber at the end