But when you require bait
for a lion, that; is another affair entirely. In the first place,
you must be able to stalk within a hundred yards of your kill
without being seen; in the second place, you must provide two or
three good lying-down places for your prospective trophy within
fifteen yards of the carcass-and no more than two or three; in
the third place, you must judge the direction of the probable
morning wind, and must be able to approach from leeward. It is
evidently pretty good luck to find an accommodating zebra in just
such a spot. It is a matter of still greater nicety to drop him
absolutely in his tracks. In a case of porters' meat it does not
make any particular difference if he runs a hundred yards before
he dies. With lion bait even fifty yards makes all the difference
in the world.
C. and I talked it over and resolved to press Scallywattamus into
service. Scallywattamus is a small white mule who is firmly
convinced that each and every bush in Africa conceals a
mule-eating rhinoceros, and who does not intend to be one of the
number so eaten. But we had noticed that at times zebra would be
so struck with the strange sight of Scallywattamus carrying a
man, that they would let us get quite close. C. was to ride
Scallywattamus while I trudged along under his lee ready to
shoot.
We set out through the heat shimmer, gradually rising as the
plain slanted. Imperceptibly the camp and the trees marking the
river's course fell below us and into the heat haze. In the
distance, close to the stream, we made out a blurred, brown-red
solid mass which we knew for Masai cattle. Various little
Thompson's gazelles skipped away to the left waggling their tails
vigorously and continuously as Nature long since commanded
"Tommies" to do. The heat haze steadied around the dim white
line, so we could make out the individual animals. There were
plenty of them, dozing in the sun. A single tiny treelet broke
the plain just at the skyline of the rise. C. and I talked
low-voiced as we went along. We agreed that the tree was an
excellent landmark to come to, that the little rise afforded
proper cover, and that in the morning the wind would in all
likelihood blow toward the river. There were perhaps twenty zebra
near enough to the chosen spot. Any of them would do.
But the zebra did not give a hoot for Scallywattamus. At five
hundred yards three or four of them awoke with a start, stared at
us a minute, and moved slowly away. They told all the zebra they
happened upon that the three idiots approaching were at once
uninteresting and dangerous. At four hundred and fifty yards a
half dozen more made off at a trot. At three hundred and fifty
yards the rest plunged away at a canter-all but one. He remained
to stare, but his tail was up, and we knew he only stayed because
he knew he could easily catch up in the next twenty seconds.
The chance was very slim of delivering a knockout at that
distance, but we badly needed meat, anyway, after our march
through the Thirst, so I tried him. We heard the well-known plunk
of the bullet, but down went his head, up went his heels, and
away went he. We watched him in vast disgust. He cavorted out
into a bare open space without cover of any sort, and then
flopped over. I thought I caught a fleeting grin of delight on
Mavrouki's face; but he knew enough instantly to conceal his
satisfaction over sure meat.
There were now no zebra anywhere near; but since nobody ever
thinks of omitting any chances in Africa, I sneaked up to the
tree and took a perfunctory look. There stood another,
providentially absent-minded, zebra!
We got that one. Everybody was now happy. The boys raced over to
the first kill, which soon took its dismembered way toward camp.
C. and I carefully organized our plan of campaign. We fixed in
our memories the exact location of each and every bush; we
determined compass direction from camp, and any other bearings
likely to prove useful in finding so small a spot in the dark.
Then we left a boy to keep carrion birds off until sunset; and
returned home.
We were out in the morning before even the first sign of dawn.
Billy rode her little mule, C. and I went afoot, Memba Sasa
accompanied us because he could see whole lions where even C.'s
trained eye could not make out an ear, and the syce went along to
take care of the mule. The heavens were ablaze with the thronging
stars of the tropics, so we found we could make out the skyline
of the distant butte over the rise of the plains. The earth
itself was a pool of absolute blackness. We could not see where
we were placing our feet, and we were continually bringing up
suddenly to walk around an unexpected aloe or thornbush. The
night was quite still, but every once in a while from the
blackness came rustlings, scamperings, low calls, and once or
twice the startled barking of zebra very near at hand. The latter
sounded as ridiculous as ever. It is one of the many
incongruities of African life that Nature should have given so
large and so impressive a creature the petulant yapping of an
exasperated Pomeranian lap dog. At the end of three quarters of
an hour of more or less stumbling progress, we made out against
the sky the twisted treelet that served as our landmark.
