The Colonel's horse was a faster walker than the others and slowly he forged ahead. Little by little the safari began to string out along the road until wide spaces grew between the ox-wagons, with the porters straggling after them a mile behind. A change had come over the valley since we had seen it last. The land was whiter beneath the blazing sunshine and the dust lay thicker in the road. Somehow it seemed deserted. The only movement was the shimmer of the heat waves.
The camera department had the slowest mounts, and as the march had become a plodding procession, in which the horses were allowed to choose their own paces, one by one the other members of the expedition passed us.
Loveless came from behind and rode with us for half a mile or so.
"I've been thinking this thing over," he finally said, "and my idea is that after the dogs get the lion stopped, one of us can go by him, rope him, and keep on going, and then the other fellow can catch him by the hind legs and we've got him. If you keep on going fast enough, I don't think he'll have a chance to spring at you."
In the pause that followed the delivery of this opinion on a matter that had been thrashed out a hundred times before, his horse gradually carried him farther ahead until he had gone beyond the range of talk.
Ulyate, the white hunter, was the next. Kearton had just finished filling his pipe and he silently reached out the bag of tobacco. But Ulyate shook his head.
"Throat's too dry," he said. "But I want to be sure I understand what I've got to do. I'm to stand by to protect the cameras and leave the Colonel and the two boys to look after themselves. If the lion charges them I'm not to fire—only if he comes at the cameras."
"That's right—only if he comes at the cameras."
"That's what I thought, but I wanted to make sure—It's a likely place, this Rugged Rocks," he continued over his shoulder. "We might easily find one to-morrow."
Means on his big bay borrowed a drink of water from Gobbet's canteen, and rode on after the others.