It was late afternoon, and they were sitting under the fly of Leon’s tent, drinking tea and endlessly going over the details of the crocodile hunt, when there was an excited stir and a hubbub ran through the encampment, indicating the imminent return of the President. Kermit jumped up. ‘Come on!’ he said to Leon. ‘Let’s go see what my old man’s bagged.’ He strode away, but turned back. ‘Don’t say anything about the croc. He won’t believe it until he sees it.’
Teddy Roosevelt rode into camp, and they were there to greet him when he dismounted and tossed the reins to a syce. He smiled when he saw Kermit, and there was a triumphant twinkle in the eyes behind the steel-rimmed spectacles.
‘Hi, Dad,’ Kermit called. ‘Did you have a good day?’
‘Not bad. I opened the lion account.’
Kermit’s face fell. ‘You got a lion?’
‘Yep!’ the President affirmed, still smiling. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. Kermit saw a party of bearers coming down the trail through the trees. They were carrying a tan body slung on a pole between them. They dumped their burden next to the taxidermy tent, and three of the Smithsonian scientists came out to view the day’s bag. They cut the ropes that bound the paws of the lion to the pole, and stretched the carcass on the ground to measure and photograph it.
Kermit laughed with relief. Even he, who knew little about them, could see that this was an immature lioness. ‘Hey, Dad!’ He chuckled as he turned to his father. ‘If you call that a real lion, I might as well call myself the President of the United States of America. She’s a baby.’
‘You’re right, son,’ his father agreed, still smiling smugly. ‘Poor little sweetheart, I had to shoot her. She wouldn’t let us get close to the body of her mate. She guarded it ferociously. At least we can have her mounted as part of a family group in one of the showcases in the African Hall at the museum. What do you think?’ He directed the question at George Lemmon, the chief of the team of scientists.
‘We’re delighted to have her, sir. She’s a fine specimen. Her hide is unblemished, it still has the immature spotting of a cub, and her teeth are perfect.’
The President looked back over his shoulder and remarked comfortably, ‘Oh, good! They’re bringing the male in now.’ Another team of bearers was just emerging from the forest. Four were staggering under the weight of the huge body they were carrying.
‘Good gracious! That looks like a very fine lion to me.’ Frederick Selous had come from his tent in his shirtsleeves, carrying his sketchpad. ‘We must make sure that those fellows handle it carefully. It would never do to have the skin abraded or damaged.’
The bearers came up with the lion swinging on the pole to the rhythm of their trot. They lowered it gently to the ground beside the lioness. Sammy Edwards, the head taxidermist, stretched it out carefully and ran his measuring tape from the tip of its onyx-black nose to the black tuft at the end of its tail. ‘Nine feet one inch.’ He looked up at the President. ‘That’s a great lion, sir, the largest I’ve ever had a tape on.’