At midnight, far off to the north, came the grunting voice of a lion. I waited eagerly for the next sound which would indicate whether the lure of the bait was beckoning him on. And soon the sound came, this time much nearer, and after a long silence there was a sharp, snarling grunt of a lion, followed by the panic-stricken rush of a hundred heavy hoofs. The conjunction of sounds told the story as definitely as if the whole scene lay bared to view. The lion had leaped upon a hartebeest, probably instantly breaking its neck, while the rest of the herd had galloped away in terror. And it had all happened within two or three hundred yards of the tree—yet nothing could be seen.
At two o'clock the grunt of a lion was again heard far off to the south. It came steadily toward us, and at last there was no doubt about its destination. It was coming to the bait. How my eyes strained to pierce the darkness and how breathlessly I waited with rifle in readiness! But the lion only paused at the bait, and as I waited for it to settle down to its feast it went grunting away and the chance was gone. Perhaps it had already fed, or perhaps it was an unusually fastidious lion which desired to do its own killing.
An hour or two later, both gunbearers asleep and one snoring peacefully, I became aware of a large animal feeding at the bait. Although no sound had preceded its coming, I thought it might be a lion, but feared that it was a hyena. I fired at the dark, shifting, black shadow and the roar of the big rifle shattered the silence like a clap of unexpected thunder. Then there was such a dense silence that it seemed to ring in one's ears.
Had I hit or missed? That could not be decided until daybreak, for it is the height of folly to climb down from a tree to feel the pulse of a wounded lion.
When daybreak came we made an investigation. Only the mangled remains of the carcass lay below. Later in the day some members of our party came across the dead body of a hyena lying about a hundred yards from the tree, partly hidden by a little clump of bushes. Its backbone was shattered by a .475 bullet.
Thus ended my first and only adventure in the "tree method."
The boma method is slightly more dangerous and much more exciting. A lot of thorn branches are twisted together in a little circle, within which the hunter sits and waits for his lion. As in the tree method, a bait is placed near the boma, twelve or fifteen yards away, and a little loophole is arranged in the tangle of thorn branches through which the rifle may be trained upon the bait.
The Boma Method
The lion can not get into the boma unless he jumps up and comes in from the top. It is the function of the hunter to prevent this strategic manœuver by killing the lion before he gets in. If he does not, he is likely to find himself engaged in a spirited hand-to-hand fight with an unfriendly lion in a space about as big as the upper berth of a sleeping-car.