The sheep climbed higher and higher and then stopped, and after standing for a little while, two of them lay down.
Meanwhile, their pursuer had not been able to advance, for if he had followed the trail which the rams had taken they would surely have seen him and run off. Two or three times he put up his head to look at them and then drew it back again.
“What can we do, Hugh?” asked Jack. “I’d like to get a shot at that lion, but he’s a long way off, and doesn’t show himself.”
“No, you can’t do anything now,” declared Hugh, “except wait. Maybe if the rams move, he will come out so that you can shoot at him with some chance of hitting. As it is now, it’s a thousand to one that you wouldn’t come anywhere near him and would just scare the game and make a noise for nothing. If you were ‘round on the other side of that hill you could probably get a good shot, but so you could if you had wings and could fly right over the beast.”
“Nothing to do but wait here, I expect?” said Joe.
“Nothing else,” said Hugh.
Eager though Jack was to get a shot at the panther and strong as were his sympathies with the sheep, he could not help being interested as he sat there and watched the three rams which stood unconsciously so near their deadly enemy, and the patience and caution of the great cat. He hardly marked the passage of time, so anxious was he to see the lion as it took an occasional peep at the sheep, and then settled back again out of sight. At last, however, he whispered to Hugh, “Isn’t there anything we can do, Hugh? I’d like that lion.”
“I don’t know of anything unless we want to end the show right here. If you make a move the rams will see us and go off, and likely enough when the lion sees them go away scared he will see us, and then he’ll go.”
For a long time they sat there, but at length the two rams that had been lying down got up, and after moving about a little, started on, passing out of sight, round the side of the mountain, and long before they had disappeared the lion was cautiously creeping after them.
“Now, Hugh,” said Jack, “can’t we go over there and follow that lion and perhaps get him?”