Historical Badass: Stab in the Dark

By 1902, when twenty-five-year-old Harry Wolhuter was named one of the first wardens in Sabi Game Reserve, which would later become Kruger National Park, one of the jewels of the Republic of South Africa, he had already lived through the loss of his cattle herd to a rinderpest epidemic, recovered from a virulent strain of malaria, fought in the Boer War, and become one of only nine people to survive blackwater fever in the summer of 1901 near the border with Mozambique.

Then came the lions.

One evening in August 1903, shortly after dusk, the new warden was patrolling on horseback with his dog Bull, out ahead of his support team, when he heard rustling in the bush. Two large shapes loomed up at him—big cats, and not friendly ones.

Wolhuter wheeled his horse and dug with his spurs, but the first lion slammed into them and sank its claws into the horse’s hindquarters. Bucking and kicking, the horse threw the lion off, and Wolhuter, too, who