It was arranged that the Colonel, with the dogs, should go to the southeast, where the dead rhino lay, the two cowboys should ride about two miles to the southwest and wait near the lower end of the big donga, and Kearton, Ulyate, and myself should scale the southern face of the Black Reef, where, with the aid of glasses, we could keep in touch with the Colonel and the boys on the plain below. Thus the men would be stationed at each corner of a vast triangle. If the Colonel flushed a lion, the animal would probably break for either the rocks or the donga, and so either the cowboys or the camera department could cut him off. Because the distances were so great, the customary signal of two revolver shots to "gather" could not be relied upon; the lighting of a fire would mean the same.
The morning star was still bright in the eastern heavens when the expedition rode out of camp in the early hours of April 8th. At the end of half a mile the three parties gradually separated on slightly diverging lines and moved silently to their appointed stations. Leaving the horses and the camera porters at the base of the reef, the three of us of the center station climbed the rocks in the darkness and waited for the dawn.
Slowly the first signs of day appeared over the hills and the morning star commenced to fade. As the light strengthened, the wide panorama of the plains and the far off mountains unfolded and the individual patches of scrub and single trees began to stand out distinctly from the general blur of the darker reaches.
For fully half an hour everything was still and the light steadily broadened. Then suddenly Ulyate pointed.
In the plain to the southeast we could see a black speck moving about in a strange manner—first one way, then another, then stopping and moving on again.
"It's the Colonel," said Kearton, who had the glasses. "I think I can see the dogs. He's up to something."
It was not many minutes before the Colonel's actions took on a different trend. For a space he rode straight for the reef. There the smaller black specks of the dogs appeared on the plain in front. No doubt remained now of what the Colonel was up to. The dogs were on the trail of some animal—lion or hyena, there was no telling which—but the scent was hot and the hunt was coming strong.
At one place the dogs made a big bend to the north toward our camp. So the beast, whatever it was, had come to have a look at us in the night.
For the first time then, as they swung back for the rocks, we faintly heard a hound give tongue. It was the only sound in the stillness.
Kearton began tearing up the dry grass that grew in the cracks between the rocks, and piled it in a heap.