El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1912-07-08
THE LIONS MISTAKE
By f. St. Mars.

TT WAS the only water for very many
miles around indeed, so far that
l. many animals were obliged to jour
ney 10 miles to it from out on the
plains You would not have consid-
cred it very tempting. Nor should I
1t looked like pale coffee as much as
anything. But it was water, and there
was no other When you came 10 re-
member that the heat out in the open
at midday was such that had you gone
without a sun helmet, sunstrOke
would have smitten you in very short
time, you can grasp, perhaps, more
fully what the water really meant TO
the swarming wild folk of the region.
This day, however, something was
very much wrong. OF course, with its
partly surrounding cover of giant,
spreading, emphOrbia trees that looked
like great candelabra and bacbab trees
all matter together with vast vines
Themselves often as thick as fairsized
trees-and dense masses of Wait-a-bi
thorn and mimOsa, this water was not
a safe drinking place. That was not
the point, however. The fact was evil
dent that before, the animals, both
singly and in large herds, had risked
1t. whereas today, they would not do
so on any account
Nevertheless they wanted to drink
All about on the plain, and under
the shade of the euphOrbas ana mi
nOsas, you could see them gathered,
these thirsty ones. Here was herd
of beautiful striped ZebraS- there a
the hartebeest; farther off a party Of
quaint gnuS, looking like miniature
buffalos loafed together with dropping
heads, and one herd was made up Of
mighty, 1ongnecked giraffes.
Later, just as the light began to
fall, tremor seemed to run through
all those gathered herds. \ lion in
some rocks about a mile away began
roaring 1t was an awful sound. that
deep succession of low, coughing.
mighty grunts, booming out across the
silent plain. Every third night that
lion had lain in ambush there by the
water, and had levied the terrible tax
Of the king Of the African Wild-One
antelope or zebra life to appease his
from his last kill" He was hungry
again, and was coming for his toll. No
wonder the assembled herds trembled.
Then the moon came up, and the lion
left off roaring. Instantly the waiting
herds were on the alert, and began to
move away from cover. They knew
that a lion does his hunting in silence,
and that when roaring he is not ac-
tually dangerous. Directly the king
or the wild was dumb, however; it was
case of look out all No beast knew
where, under cover of the night, he
would turn up neXt-certainly in the
most unexpected spot.
Following upon that, for no less than
two hours not sound broke the still
ness OF the wilderness, save the pecu-
liar neigh of the zebras-and they are
rarely quiet. Indeed, it almost looked
as If the lion had gone in some other
direction that night, and a troop Of
beautiful lyrehOrned Grants gaZeIles
they are far the largest of gazelles-
were at length so overcome by thirst
as to risk the terror by the water.
1t was a wonderful and pretty sight
to see them advancing to the pool,
stringing in and out among the mi
mOsas, stopping every few yards to
look and listen and test the air with
their keen noses. An old and cunning
doe led, and the master buck, who al
most looked tOpheavy by reason of his
long horns, brought up the rear
They reached the water and eagerly
dashed in to drink as quickly as pos
sibIe. Behind them an old zebra stall
lion had followed, and behind him,
again, a lonely ostrich-all keenly on
the alert, and anxious to see how the
Sazelles Jared.
1t must have been this old zebra stall
lion that first saw the lion, I think.
He was crOuching under a cactus bush
close to the water and the gazelles. He
had been there a full hour, in fact,
waiting Except for his cleaning
eyes, he was so still that not even the