Into the Primitive Part 16

"Well, now, look here, Miss Jenny; it's going to be a mess, and I wouldn't mind hauling the carca.s.ses clear down the gully, out of sight, if it was to be the only time. But it's not, and you've got to get used to it, sooner or later. So we'll start now."

"I suppose, if I must, Mr. Blake-- Really, I wish to help."

"Good. That's something like! Think you can learn to cook?"

"See what I did this morning."

Blake took the cord of cocoanut fibre which she held out to him, and tested its strength.

"Well, I'll be--blessed!" he said. "This _is_ something like. If you don't look out, you'll make quite a camp-mate, Miss Jenny. But now, trot along. This is hardly arctic weather, and our abattoir don't include a cold-storage plant. The sooner these lambs are dressed, the better."

CHAPTER X

PROBLEMS IN WOODCRAFT

It was no pleasant sight that met Miss Leslie's gaze upon her return.

The neatest of butchering can hardly be termed aesthetic; and Blake and Winthrope lacked both skill and tools. Between the penknife and an improvised blade of bamboo, they had flayed the two cubs and haggled off the flesh. The ragged strips, spitted on bamboo rods, were already searing in the fierce sun-rays.

Miss Leslie would have slipped into the hollow of the baobab with her armful of f.a.gots and brush; but Blake waved a b.l.o.o.d.y knife above the body of the mother leopard, and beckoned the girl to come nearer.

"Hold on a minute, please," he said. "What did you find out?"

Miss Leslie drew a few steps nearer, and forced herself to look at the revolting sight. She found it still more difficult to withstand the odor of the fresh blood. Winthrope was pale and nauseated. The sight of his distress caused the girl to forget her own loathing. She drew a deep breath, and succeeded in countering Blake's expectant look with a half-smile.

"How well you are getting along!" she exclaimed.

"Didn't think you could stand it. But you've got grit all right, if you _are_ a lady," Blake said admiringly. "Say, you'll make it yet!

Now, how about the gully?"

"There is no place to climb up. It runs along like this, and then slopes down. But there is a cliff at the end, as high as these walls."

"Twenty feet," muttered Blake. "Confound the luck! It isn't that jump-off; but how in--how are we going to get up on the cliff? There's an everlasting lot of omelettes in those birds' nests. If only that bloomin'--how's that, Win, me b'y?--that bloomin', blawsted baobab was on t' other side. The wood's almost soft as punk. We could drive in pegs, and climb up the trunk."

"There are other trees beyond it," remarked Miss Leslie.

"Then maybe we can shin up--"

"I fear the branches that overhang the cliff are too slender to bear any weight."

"And it's too infernally high to climb up to this overhanging baobab limb."

"I say," ventured Winthrope, "if we had a axe, now, we might cut up one of the trees, and make a ladder."

"Oh, yes; and if we had a ladder, we might climb up the cliff!"

"But, Mr. Blake, is there not some way to cut down one of the trees? The tree itself would be a ladder if it fell in such a way as to lean against the cliff."

"There's only the penknife," answered Blake. "So I guess we'll have to scratch eggs off our menu card. Spring leopard for ours! Now, if you really want to help, you might sc.r.a.pe the soup bones out of your boudoir, and fetch a lot more brush. It'll take a big fire to rid the hole of that cat smell."

"Will not the tree burn?"

"No; these hollow baobabs have green bark on the inside as well as out.

Funny thing, that! We'd have to keep a fire going a long time to burn through."

"Yet it would burn in time?"

"Yes; but we're not going to--"

"Then why not burn through the trunk of one of those small trees, instead of chopping it down?"

"By--heck, Miss Jenny, you've got an American headpiece! Come on.

Sooner we get the thing started, the better."

Neither Winthrope nor Miss Leslie was reluctant to leave the vicinity of the carca.s.ses. They followed close after Blake, around the monstrous bole of the baobab. A little beyond it stood a group of slender trees, whose trunks averaged eight inches thick at the base. Blake stopped at the second one, which grew nearest to the seaward side of the cleft.

"Here's our ladder," he said. "Get some firewood. Pound the bushes, though, before you go poking into them. May be snakes here."

"Snakes?--oh!" cried Miss Leslie, and she stood shuddering at the danger she had already incurred.

The fire had burnt itself out on a bare ledge of rock between them and the baobab, and the clumps of dry brush left standing in this end of the cleft were very suggestive of snakes, now that Blake had called attention to the possibility of their presence.

He laughed at his hesitating companions. "Go on, go on! Don't squeal till you're bit. Most snakes hike out, if you give them half a chance.

Take a stick, each of you, and pound the bushes."

Thus urged, both started to work. But neither ventured into the thicker clumps. When they returned, with large armfuls of sticks and twigs, they found that Blake had used his gla.s.s to light a handful of dry bark, out in the sun, and was nursing it into a small fire at the base of the tree, on the side next the cliff.

"Now, Miss Jenny," he directed, "you're to keep this going--not too big a fire--understand? Same time you can keep on fetching brush to fumigate your cat hole. It needs it, all right."

"Will not that be rather too much for Miss Leslie?" asked Winthrope.

"Well, if she'd rather come and rub brains on the skins,--Indian tan, you know,--or--"

"How can you mention such things before a lady?" protested Winthrope.

"Beg your pardon, Miss Leslie! you see, I'm not much used to ladies'

company. Anyway, you've got to see and hear about these things. And now I'll have to get the strings for Win's bamboo bows. Come on, Win.

We've got that old tabby to peel, and a lot more besides."

Miss Leslie's first impulse was to protest against being left alone, when at any moment some awful venomous serpent might come darting at her out of the brush or the crevices in the rocks. But her half-parted lips drew firmly together, and after a moment's hesitancy, she forced herself to the task which had been a.s.signed her. The fire, once started, required little attention. She could give most of her time to gathering brush for the fumigation of the leopard den.

She had collected quite a heap of fuel at the entrance of the hollow, when she remembered that the place would first have to be cleared of its acc.u.mulation of bones. A glance at her companions showed that they were in the midst of tasks even more revolting. It was certainly disagreeable to do such things; yet, as Mr. Blake had said, others had to do them. It was now her time to learn. She could see him smile at her hesitation.

Stung by the thought of his half contemptuous pity, she caught up a forked stick, and forced herself to enter the tree-cave. The stench met her like a blow. It nauseated and all but overpowered her. She stood for several moments in the centre of the cavity, sick and faint. Had it been even the previous day, she would have run out into the open air.

Presently she grew a little more accustomed to the stench, and began to rake over the soft dry mould of the den floor with her forked stick.