It was high time for me to take action; a wounded leopard and a leopardess with young can make themselves pretty awkward. I aimed at the female as being the more dangerous, and was about to pull the trigger, when a movement in the valley attracted my attention. One of the cubs we had first seen was tearing across the open, making for the stream. Some distance behind followed the other, evidently wounded. Close upon him ran Dansani, machete in hand. As I looked the cub turned and Dansani struck. Nyato was close behind, and level with him, but farther out, Otibu Daku stole swiftly with long, bent-kneed strides, his “long Dane” gun held across his body. Strange was not in sight. The foremost cub was nearly at the stream when he raised a howl of fear or of warning, I do not know which. On the instant, from a clump of bushes on the farther side, there leapt two greyish-white forms. Clearing the stream, they charged straight down on the young Ashanti. All this was photographed on my brain while my finger was on the trigger. The scene was blotted out as I fired, and from that moment I had enough on my hands to occupy my undivided attention. The leopardess was killed outright. The next instant I fired at the male, but one of the cubs gave a jump and received the bullet meant for his sire. How the brute did it I do not know--for he had a broken thigh-bone--but next moment the old leopard was tearing up the slope towards me, and very business-like he looked. I fired again and clipped his ear; then his claws were hooked on to the root in front of me, and all I could do was to smash the butt, pile-driver fashion, down upon his head. He seized it in his jaws, and the hard wood cracked like pitch-pine, while the wrench nearly tore the weapon from my grasp. He gave me no time to reverse it for another shot, or to draw my revolver. Four times did he struggle to draw himself up, and but for his broken leg I could not have prevented him. Four times, luckily for me, he allowed his fury to vent itself on the rifle-butt. The struggle only lasted seconds, but it seemed hours, and already the fury of it made my breath come short. And then the cub decided to take a hand! It had been pacing to and fro, snuffing the blood and growling; it then suddenly turned, and dashed straight to the scene of combat. A leopard cub by itself is not more than a man can manage, but as a reinforcement to an infuriated parent it is a serious matter. I heard Tawiah behind me. “Take the piccin,” I yelled, and put all my strength into an effort to thrust my foe back. Instinctively he tried to use his injured leg, and this time he lost grip altogether, and his claws scraped down the root, making great furrows in the wood. I let him have the gun, and seized my revolver in time to plant a couple of bullets in his head as he came up again.