Ron's most likely lording over a half-eaten waterbuck taken from his sister, gorging himself in private, Varty guesses. As the big male Bengal has no compelling need to hunt today, it's just the three of us.

"When she starts to hunt, we become irrelevant," Varty whispers. "We'll try not to get in the way."

Julie follows along a spring bed, padding soundlessly through the tall, tan grass and leaping effortlessly across outcrops of bare, dark rocks that protrude above the veld. She investigates a hole in a termite mound, sniffing for ant bear. No luck. She crouches and creeps as she slips through the thorn trees that grab Varty's denim shirt and tatter his pants. She's stunningly camouflaged in the dappled light — adapted to lie in wait for prey and pounce.

Like a cub, I try to follow by focusing on the white tips behind her ears and her black-tipped tail. But who am I kidding? I manage to stay on Julie's heels, figuratively speaking, only because Varty leads the way, crashing through brush, camera relaxed at his side.

Julie's in patrolling mode; she's not quite hunting. That could change in an instant if the opportunity presented itself, if she flushed out a porcupine, for instance. Stopping to lift her head into the wind, Julie curls back her lips and makes a "flemen face. " She's activating the Jacobsen's organ, Varty whispers, a primitive sense organ related to smell.

She leaps up to the top of a small hill and surveys her territory. She more often stays in cover but occasionally silhouettes herself like this, Varty says, usually keeping near to a tree or rock. She sees better in the distance than at close-range. Her night vision is especially keen — six times better than that of yours and mine.

Julie looks out over a nearly 20,000-acre area in the northern part of the sanctuary, which currently measures nearly 90,000 acres in total and spans two South African provinces: the Free State and the Cape. The Gariep, a croc-free river, runs through the sanctuary. Varty procured this property by buying up 22 sheep farms "relatively cheaply," he says, because the farmers were going bankrupt. The land, dotted by windmills for irrigation, was overgrazed and eroded.