Therefore we continued after kudu.  We found old signs, proving that the beasts visited this country, but nothing fresh.  We saw, however, the first sing-sing, some impalla, some klipspringer, and Chanler’s reed-buck.

At evening we made a crafty stalk atop the mesa-like foothills to a point overlooking the leopard’s kill.  We lay here looking the place over inch by inch through our glasses, when an ejaculation of disgust from Kongoni called our attention.  There at another spot that confounded beast sat like a house cat watching us cynically.  Either we had come too soon, or she had heard us and retired to what she considered a safe distance.  There was of course no chance of getting nearer; so I sat down, for a steadier hold, and tried her anyway.  At the shot she leaped high in the air, rolled over once, then recovered her feet and streaked off at full speed.  Just before disappearing over a slight rise, she stopped to look back.  I tried her again.  We concluded this shot a miss, as the distance and light were such that only sheer luck could have landed the bullet.  However, that luck was with us.  Later developments showed that both shots had hit.  One cut a foreleg, but without breaking a bone, and the other had hit the paunch.  One was at 380 paces and the other at 490.

We found blood on the trail, and followed it a hundred yards and over a small ridge to a wide patch of high grass.  It was now dark, the grass was very high, and the animal probably desperate.  The situation did not look good to us, badly armed as we were.  So we returned to camp, resolved to take up the trail again in the morning.

Every man in camp turned out next day to help beat the grass.  C., with the .405, stayed to direct and protect the men; while I, with the Springfield, sat down at the head of the ravine.  Soon I could hear the shrieks, rattles, shouts, and whistles of the line of men as they beat through the grass.  Small grass bucks and hares bounded past me; birds came whirring by.  I sat on a little ant hill spying as hard as I could in all directions.  Suddenly the beaters fell to dead silence.  Guessing this as a signal to me that the beast had been seen, I ran to climb a higher ant hill to the left.  From there I discerned the animal plainly, sneaking along belly to earth, exactly in the manner of a cat after a sparrow.  It was not a woods-leopard, but the plains-leopard, or cheetah, supposed to be a comparatively harmless beast.

At my shot she gave one spring forward and rolled over into the grass.  The nearest porters yelled, and rushed in.  I ran, too, as fast as I could, but was not able to make myself heard above the row.  An instant later the beast came to its feet with a savage growl and charged the nearest of the men.  She was crippled, and could not move as quickly as usual, but could hobble along faster than her intended victim could run.  This was a tall and very conceited Kavirondo.  He fled, but ran around in circles in and out of his excited companions.  The cheetah followed him, and him only, with most single-minded purpose.