He was still alive when I came up to him, and a small bullet was fired into the base of his brain to reduce the danger of a final charge.
Old hunters always caution one about approaching a dying lion, for often the beast musters up unexpected vitality, makes a final charge, kills somebody, and then dies happy.

So we waited a few feet away until the last quiver of his sides had passed.

One of the boys pulled his tail and shook him, but there was no sign of life.

He was extinct.
A new danger now threatened.

The grass fire that the second gunbearer had started was sweeping the prairie, fanned by a strong wind, and there seemed to be not only the danger of abandoning the lion, but of being forced to flee before the flames.