"Bravo, Bob!" cried Mark, as he and his cousin ran up to meet them. "Why, you haven't carried Peter all this way?" "Phew! Arn't it hot, sir! Not carried him? Well, what do you call this?" "How are you, Peter?" asked Dean. "Very bad, sir." "Oh, don't say very," cried Mark. "You will be better when you have had some breakfast." "Hope so, sir," said the man, with a groan; and he was carefully carried to the first waggon, in front of which Dan had already begun to busy himself raking the fire together and getting water on to boil, while as soon as the doctor had seen to his patient and had had him laid upon a blanket, he joined Sir James and the boys to look round while breakfast was being prepared, and examine the traces of the night's encounter. There lay one huge lion, stretched out and stiffening fast, showing the blood-stained marks of its wound, and a short distance beyond were the torn and horribly mutilated bodies of two of the bullocks, not very far apart, one of them quite dead, the other gazing up appealingly in the faces of those who approached him, and ready to salute them with a piteous bellow. "Poor brute," said the doctor, taking a revolver from his belt, and walking close up to the wounded bullock, he placed the muzzle right in the centre of its forehead as the poor beast raised its head feebly, and fired. "Oh!" ejaculated the boys, as if with one breath, and while the poor animal's head was beginning to subside back to the blood-stained grass upon which it had lain the doctor fired again, and the mutilated animal sank back motionless with a deep, heavy sigh. "An act of mercy," said the doctor quietly. "Yes," said Sir James gravely. "It seems cruel, boys, but it would have been far worse to have left him there to be tortured by the flies and attacked by vultures and hyaenas." By this time Buck Denham had come up, and while the two boys were still mentally hesitating as to the mercy of the act, which seemed terribly repellent, he said, "That's right, boss. I just ketched sight of a couple of those owry birds coming along, and if it hadn't been for the trees they would have been at work before now. I'd bet a pipe of tobacco that a pack of those laughing beauties the hyaenas are following the crows and will be hard at work as soon as we are on the trek." Farther in the forest Mak soon found the body of the other lion, which had left its trail as it crawled away to die; but it was still warm, and had hardly had time to stiffen, looking still so life-like with its unglazed eyes that it was approached rather nervously, every rifle in the party being directed at the huge brute. But no trigger was drawn, for proof was given at once of its power to do mischief having lapsed by the action of the black, who leaped upon it with a shout and indulged himself with a sort of dance of triumph. "Here, you come off," cried Buck. "Spoor. Spoor."