It was John who found the lion tracks.
He found them near the carcass of a zebra that had been killed the night before, and he circled once, nose to the ground, hair shooting up along his back, as it did when he was after lion or bear, and then he lifted his head and bayed, and the pack joined in, all heads high, and Jones knew it was a hot trail.

He stifled the Comanche yell and let John lead him straight toward the nearby black volcanic mountain.
This mountain was known as The Black Reef and it rose almost perpendicularly for about two hundred feet, honeycombed with caves, top covered with dense scrub and creepers and tall grass.
On the south it ended sharply as though the lava had been cut off there suddenly.

Kearton and Ulyate had started the day together while Jones followed the dogs, and Means and Loveless had taken another route, and now, with the discovery of the fresh trail still unknown to him, Ulyate reined in, in the shadow of the Reef and pointed.
Kearton focussed his field glasses.

"That's the Colonel", he said, "But I can't see the dogs".

As they watched, Jones rode straight for the Reef.
Then they picked up the smaller black specks on the plain in front of him.
The dogs were working a trail -- lion?
Hyena?
The pack had made a bend to the north, swinging back toward the Reef, and Kearton and Ulyate could hear them faintly.

Kearton got off and tore up some dry grass that grew in cracks between the rocks and piled it in a heap and wanted to make the smoke signal that would bring Loveless and Means and the rest of the party.

"Not yet", cautioned Ulyate.

Jones came toward them fast, now, along the southern toe of the Reef, and the dogs could be heard plainly, Old John with his Grand Canyon voice outstanding above the others.
There was Sounder, too, also a veteran of the North Rim, and Rastus and the Rake from a pack of English fox-hounds, and a collie from a London pound, and Simba, a terrier.
A motley pack, chosen for effectiveness, not beauty.
Jones was galloping close behind them leaning down, cheering them on.

"Light it"!
Ulyate said, and Kearton touched a match to the pile of grass, blew on it and flame licked out.
He threw green stuff on it, and a thin blue column of smoke rose.

"That will fetch the gang and tell the Colonel where we are".

Two quick shots sounded.
Then there was a chorus of wild barking and baying.
Then the heavy roar of a lion.

Kearton and Ulyate looked at each other and began to gallop toward the sound.
It came from the top of the Reef not half a mile away.
At the base of the rocky hillside, they left their horses and climbed on foot.
The route was choked with rugged lava-rocks, creepers and bushes, so thickly overgrown that when Kearton lost sight of Ulyate and called, Ulyate answered from ten feet away.
Nice country to meet a lion in face to face.
Ulyate and Kearton climbed on toward the sound of the barking of the dogs and the sporadic roaring of the lion, till they came, out of breath, to the crest, and peering through the branches of a bush, this is what Ulyate saw: Jones who had apparently (and actually had) ridden up the nearly impassable hillside, sitting calmly on his horse within forty feet of a full-grown young lioness, who was crouched on a flat rock and seemed just about to charge him, while the dogs whirled around her.

Ulyate drew back with a start, and put finger to lips, almost afraid to move or whisper lest it set her off, "The dogs have got her bayed.
She's just the other side of that bush"!
And when they had drawn back a step he added: "Jones is sitting on his horse right in front of her.
Why she doesn't charge him, I don't know.
And he hasn't even got a knife on him.
He couldn't get away from her in this kind of ground.
Careful, don't disturb her".

Jones had been about a hundred and fifty feet from her when he first broke through to the top of the Reef.
She was standing on a flat rock three feet above ground and when she saw him she rose to full height and roared, opening her mouth wide, lashing her tail, and stamping at the rock with both forefeet in irritation, as much as to say: "How dare you disturb me in my sacred precinct"?

Intuition told him, however, that she was tired and winded from the run up the Reef and would not charge, yet.
He moved forward to within thirty-five feet of her, being careful, because he knew the female is less predictable than the male.
(In the graveyard at Nairobi he had been shown the graves of thirty-four big game hunters killed hunting the animals he was attempting to lasso.
Of the thirty-four, seventeen had been killed by lions, and eleven out of the seventeen by lionesses.
) She snarled terribly but intuition told him, again, that she was bluffing, and he could see that half her attention was distracted by the dogs.
He threw the lasso.
It was falling over her head when a branch of a bush caught it and it fell in front of her on the rock.
Even then, if she took one step forward he could catch her.
But John nipped her rear end -- one lion's rear end was as good as another to John, Africa, Arizona no matter -- and she changed ends and took a swipe at John, but he ducked back.

Jones then recoiled his rope and threw again, this time hitting her on the back but failing to encircle her.
She whirled and faced him, roaring terribly, and Ulyate, watching through the leaves, could not understand why she did not charge and obliterate him, because he wouldn't have much of a chance of getting away, in that thick growth, but she seemed just a trace uncertain;
while Jones, on the other hand, appeared perfectly confident and Ulyate decided perhaps that was the answer.

From the lioness' point of view, this strange creature on the back of another creature, lashing out with its long thin paw, very likely appeared as something she could not at first cope with.
But now she sank lower to the rock.
Her roar changed to a growl.
Her tail no longer lashed.
Although she appeared more subdued and defeated, Jones knew she was growing more dangerous.
She was rested and could mount a charge.
Just the tip of her tail was moving as she crouched, and she was treading lightly up and down with her hind feet.

At this moment, Loveless and Means arrived, crashing through the undergrowth with their horses, and distracted her, and she ran off a short distance and jumped into a crevice between two rocks.
The dogs followed her and she killed three and badly wounded Old John.

"We've got to get her out of there"!
Jones yelled, "or she'll kill 'em all.
Bring me the firecrackers".

For such an emergency he had included Fourth-of-July cannon crackers as part of their equipment.
Lighting one he pitched it into the crevice, and the lioness left off mauling the dogs and departed.

"Ain't she a beauty, though"?
Called out Means as she ran.

"Don't you go a step nearer her than I do", Jones warned, "and if you do, go at a run so you'll have momentum"!

For two hours they drove her from one strong point to another along the side of the Reef, trying to maneuver her onto the plain where they could get a good throw.
But she clung to the rocks and brush, and the day wore away.
It was hot.
The dogs were tired.
The men were tired too.
It was the story of the rhinoceros fight all over again.
And the sun was beginning to go down.
If dark came they would lose her.

"I'll get a pole", Jones said finally, "and I'll poke a noose over her head"!

At this moment she was crouched in a cave-like aperture halfway down the Reef.
Ulyate made no comment but his face showed what he thought of poking ropes over lions' heads with poles, and of course these were the lions of fifty years ago, not the gentler ones of today, and this one was angry, with good reason.
Loveless, too, objected.
"It won't work, Colonel".

"Just the same we'll try it".

But without waiting for them to try it, she scattered the dogs and shot down the Reef and out across the plain.

John led the chase after her and the other dogs strung out behind, many of them trailing blood.
John himself was bruised and clawed from head to tail, but he was in this fight to the finish, running almost as strongly now as in the morning.

She took refuge on a tongue of land extending into a gully, crouched at the base of a thorn tree, and waited for them to come up.
She had chosen the spot well.
With the gully on three sides, she could be approached only along the tongue of land.
"Careful, now", Jones warned.

Means tried her first.
Very slowly he maneuvered his rawboned bay gelding, edging closer, watching for a chance to throw, but ready to spin and run, rope whining about his head, horse edging tensely under him, but the gelding was obedient and responded and was not paralyzed by the close proximity of the lion.
They tell you horses go crazy at the sight or smell of a bear or a lion, but these didn't.

Means edged closer.
She snarled warningly.
Means spit and edged on.
Again she snarled, and again he edged.
The pony was sidewise to her.
With a whirling jump, it could get into gear.
However nothing on four legs was supposed to be faster than a lion over a short distance, unless it was a cheetah.

She charged.
Means spun and spurred.
For thirty yards she gained rapidly.
She was closing and within one more bound would have been able to reach the rear end of the bay, but -- and here Jones and Loveless and Ulyate were holding breath for all they were worth -- she never quite caught up that last bound.
Means held steady one jump ahead of her.
Then gradually he began to pull away.
A Western cowpony had outrun an African lion, from a standing start.
Photos showed later that she'd been about six feet from Means.
Of course the factor of head start made all the difference.
How much head start?
No one knew exactly.
That was the whole question.
Enough, was the answer.

The lioness quickly changed front, when she saw she couldn't catch Means, and made for Jones.
As she had done with Means, she gained rapidly at first, but then Baldy began to draw away.
Somewhere in the few scant yards of head start was the determining point.

When Jones too drew away, she returned to a thorn bush in the neck of land running into the gully, crouched low and waited as before.
This new position, however, gave the ropers a better chance.
There was room to make a quick dash past the bush and throw as you went.
So: Means edged around on the north side of her, Jones moved in from the south.
Tossing his rope and shouting he attracted her attention.
He succeeded almost too well, because once she rose as if to charge, and he half wheeled his horse -- he was within fifty feet -- but she sank back.

From behind her Means shot forward at a run.
Kearton began shouting, "Wait, wait -- the camera's jammed"!
But Means kept on.
He raced by within twenty feet of her, roped her around the neck, but a lioness' neck is short and thick and with a quick twist she slipped the noose off.