The cheetah sat tall on the five-foot termite mound, scanning the horizon. Her sleek tan body spotted with black blended into the Masai Mara plain, making her all but invisible. Intelligent eyes with dark "tear marks" running to the corners of her mouth outlined a graceful face that seemed too small for her broad chest and long legs. She was designed for speed. Below in the wheat-colored grass, her 18-month-old twins wrestled, play-fighting and practicing hunting skills. Her soft warning chirrup alerted them instantly, and they stared in the direction she was facing.

In the distance grazed a young female impala, unaware of the hungry cheetah family. The impala's tail switched back and forth like a windshield wiper in a thunderstorm. Dark straight lines on each rump, separated by a black tail, served as a flag for other impalas to follow, but also served as a McDonald's arch for feline predators.

The cheetah slunk off the high perch and flattened her body to the ground. As she stalked, her shoulder blades protruded like twin sails with each step as she hugged the warm earth. The twins, trailing several yards in her wake, mimed every movement. She began to crawl faster, and suddenly rose in a fluid flash of gold and black, leaping through the grass, graceful as a ballerina. Her claws gripped the sod as her oversized haunches accelerated toward the target, in seconds reaching 60 miles per hour. Her almost-fully grown cubs followed close behind.

The impala detected the blurred movement to her right and bolted left, zigzagging in a frenzied gallop to escape. Instinctively, she kicked up her heels as a show of strength and vitality to discourage pursuit. But the cheetah matched move for move, gaining with every vault. When she was inches from the fleeing animal, the cheetah swiped at the impala's hind legs, and the animal crumpled head over tail in a cloud of dust. But the mother did not pounce. Instead she stepped aside, panting, and allowed her twins to finish the hunt, their final examination after a year and a half of schooling.

The brothers had no way of knowing their mother would soon abandon them in search of a mate to start a new family and that this would be their last fresh meal for the next two weeks.

Two days later and 30 pounds of meat digested, the twins were hungry again. The duo stalked low in the short dry grass, moving a step, now freezing, watching, and now another step, pausing as their mother had instructed. But prey eluded them. Worse, they had staked out new territory and now were hunting in a part of the game park open to tourists. Land Rovers carrying four to eight gawkers like us converged around them from sunup to sundown. They ignored these distractions, but the human activity telegraphed to the local game that predators were on the hunt—beware!

That is where we found them and agonized over their futile efforts to secure dinner. As they honed their hunting skills through repeated failures, only a partially eaten wildebeest carcass left by sated hyenas saved them from starvation. After scattering the vultures that were performing cleanup duty around the remains, they tore into the decomposing flesh.

Four days later the cubs lay still in the grass. In the quiet afternoon a zebra mother looked in their direction, perhaps alerted by a scent in the air, but still not seeing them. Only two Land Rovers were present. The zebra coaxed her baby to her other side, away from the invisible danger troubling her.

It was time. The twins looked at each other and then at the target. The bigger one shot forward, followed a moment later by his brother. After hard lessons learned from failures, they separated, anticipating the zebras' next moves and positioning one of them in whichever direction the mother or baby might run. It reminded me of the Wayne Gretzsky strategy: "I skate to where the puck will be, not to where it is."

The mother's eyes widened in fear as she saw the twins running at her baby. She bolted left, followed by her youngster, just out of claw reach. Too late. When she reversed course to the right, the baby failed to follow, panicked, and stumbled. The bigger twin cut him off, pounced, and went straight for the neck. The cheetah's powerful jaws crushed the baby zebra's windpipe. It was mercifully dead in less than a minute. Its mother bleated her fury from a safe distance, futilely stomping her hoofs and pawing the earth as her offspring jerked in agonal twitches. The cheetah brother arrived just as all movement ceased. The run, pounce, and kill were over almost before they began, but the saga continued.

A lone vulture on aerial reconnaissance set into motion the African bush version of email. It spiraled down, landing a safe distance from the cheetahs to wait for leftovers while its brethren, watching from the tree tops, received the "sent" message and flew into the air, circling the kill site. This mass of birds triggered the "reply all" function that was received by two drowsing lions. Immediately, they set off in the direction of the vultures, understanding the signal and wanting to get there ahead of the hyenas.

The brothers stood over their first kill, chests heaving and hearts racing. Their hunger-wasted bodies shimmered like bronze in the setting sun. They sat beside the still form, scanning the horizon for telltale movements. Suddenly both stood, alert, noses in the air and eyes focused on two tawny shapes growing larger in the reddening twilight. Without even tasting their victory, they slunk off, looking furtively over their shoulders at the approaching lions.

Sporting new black manes, the adolescent pair loped at an easy pace. Like gang members on city streets, the young lions owned this neighborhood, claiming at will all spoils from residents. Not as skilled at hunting as the cheetahs, nor anywhere near as fast, these males relied on 450 pounds of brawn to secure dinner. Their sisters were superior strategists, using decoys and ambush to secure prey. But these two bullied their way through. It took only moments to scent the blood, locate the baby zebra lying in the grass, and begin tearing off hunks of red meat. Guilt doesn't exist in the bush. They stole the cheetahs' dinner, one pair of brothers displacing another, with survival as the only rule.

The cheetahs stood at a safe distance watching the results of their usurped labor. We would see both pairs of animals again over the next few days, the lions getting their comeuppance, but the cheetahs still seeking another kill.

Such was our introduction to the Masai Mara Game Reserve in southern Kenya. We had traveled 12,000 miles from Indianapolis to Detroit and on to Amsterdam, where we boarded a nonstop flight to Nairobi. There we met our guide and traveled to the Norfolk Hotel, where Teddy Roosevelt in 1909 and Ernest Hemingway in 1933 had stayed prior to their safaris. The following morning we boarded a single-engine ten-seater and flew 90 minutes to the Masai Mara, landing on a bumpy dirt runway 15 minutes from the camp.

We lodged in tents equipped with shower, bathroom, and concrete floor, and zippered shut from the outside world. Armed guards and Masai warriors patrolled the grounds to protect us from predators that might breach the electrified fence. Families of semi-tame warthogs, with faces only their mothers could love, wandered the grounds. These "sausages for the lions," as our guide called them, kept the grass around the tents trimmed short. At night we could hear lions growling in pleasure, hyenas howling, and noisy hippos grunting as they left their water sanctuary to graze. The wail of the little furry hyrax clinging to a tree sounded like a baby crying.

"Time to wake up. May I come in?" called the attendant at 5:00 the next morning. He carried a small wooden table with hot tea and cookies. After he unzipped the tent flap, he entered and set the table in the middle of the floor. My wife and I burrowed deeper beneath the blankets, salvaging the last remnants of sleep and warmth in the dark chilly morning. The breeze was rising and rattled the canvas of the tent. The hot-water bottle tucked beneath the covers that initially caused me to cry out in alarm when I retired the night before, thinking an animal had invaded my bed, was now cold.

Our shower had to be quick, since hot water was limited and whoever went second rinsed with a tepid spray. We quickly pulled on layers of fleece that could be peeled off later as the morning heated. But now we gratefully slid these garments over our heads, savoring their warmth.

The sun was barely cracking the horizon, outlining shadows of giraffes and elephants in the distant plain. They, too, were in search of breakfast. The warthog families were out, noses of different sizes close to the ground, chomping grass. The father of one tribe, a burly gray beast with huge yellowed tusks, walked about on the knees of his front legs to keep his muzzle close to the grass.

Rubbing sleep from our eyes and stifling yawns, the six of us staggered into the parking lot to board the three rows of seats in the Land Rover, yesterday's couple in the front seat now rotating to the bouncing rear. Brunch would come when we returned at 11:00 a.m.

Part two of Into Africa will be continued in the May/June issue of the Post.