Jude's lion had jumped. He
ran straight down, drawing Sounder from his guard. Jude went tearing
after them.
"I'll follow; you stay here. Keep them up there, if you can!" yelled
Jones. Then in long strides he passed down out of sight among the
trees and crags.
It had all happened so quickly that I could scarcely realize it. The
yelping of the hounds, the clattering of stones, grew fainter, telling
me Jude and Sounder, with Jones, were going to the bottom of the Bay.
Both lions snarling at me brought me to a keen appreciation of the
facts in the case. Two full-grown lions to be kept treed without
hounds, without a companion, without a gun.
"This is fine! This is funny!" I cried, and for a moment I wanted to
run. But the same grim, deadly feeling that had taken me with Don
around the narrow shelf now rose in me stronger and fiercer. I
pronounced one savage malediction upon myself for leaving my gun. I
could not go for it; I would have to make the best of my error, and in
the wildness born of the moment I swore if the lions would stay treed
for the hounds they would stay treed for me.
First I photographed them from different positions; then I took up my
stand about on a level with them in an open place on the slope where
they had me in plain sight. I might have been fifty feet from them.
They showed no inclination to come down.
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