Whenever I Have Come
Across An Awful Animal In The Forest And I Know It Has Seen Me I
Take Jerome's Advice, And Instead Of Relying On The Power Of The
Human Eye Rely Upon That Of The Human Leg, And Effect A Masterly
Retreat In The Face Of The Enemy.
If I know it has not seen me I
sink in my tracks and keep an eye on it, hoping that it will go away
soon.
Thus I once came upon a leopard. I had got caught in a
tornado in a dense forest. The massive, mighty trees were waving
like a wheat-field in an autumn gale in England, and I dare say a
field mouse in a wheat-field in a gale would have heard much the
same uproar. The tornado shrieked like ten thousand vengeful
demons. The great trees creaked and groaned and strained against it
and their bush-rope cables groaned and smacked like whips, and ever
and anon a thundering crash with snaps like pistol shots told that
they and their mighty tree had strained and struggled in vain. The
fierce rain came in a roar, tearing to shreds the leaves and
blossoms and deluging everything. I was making bad weather of it,
and climbing up over a lot of rocks out of a gully bottom where I
had been half drowned in a stream, and on getting my head to the
level of a block of rock I observed right in front of my eyes,
broadside on, maybe a yard off, certainly not more, a big leopard.
He was crouching on the ground, with his magnificent head thrown
back and his eyes shut.
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