Son of Power Part 43

They were tired and sun drained. Skag laid down his blankets in the early dusk and there were hours of sleep before he was awakened by the different activities at the water hole. Nels apparently had been awake for some time, studying the separate noises in a moveless calm. Skag touched his chest affectionately. A panther or some smaller cat had just made a kill among the rocks above the pool, yet Nels' hackles had not lifted in answer to the bawl of the stricken beast.

"Spotted deer possibly," Skag muttered. Then he added to the Dane:

"You're an all-right chap to camp with, son. You'd sit it out alone until they brought the fracas to our doorstep rather than disturb a friend's sleep. That's what I call being a white man."

Skag always thought of Cadman as the unparallelled comrade for field work. In fact, he had learned many of the little niceties of the open from the much-travelled American artist and writer--finished performances of comradeship, a regard for the unwritten things, reverence for those rights which never could be brought to the point of words, but which give delicacy and delectation to hours together between men. Skag never ceased to delight in the silence and self-control of the Dane. The dog rippled and thrilled with all the fundamental elements of friendship and fidelity, but his big body seemed able to contain them with a dignity that endeared him to the one who understood. Bhanah's work in the training of this fellow was nothing short of consummate art.

Breakfasting together, Skag refreshed Nels' mind with the work of the day--that it meant Tiger, that all lesser affairs might come and go.

The big fellow was up and eager to be off, before Skag finished strapping his blanket roll. There was rather a memorable moment of sentiency just there. Skag was on one knee as he glanced into Nels'

face. His own powers were highly awake that minute, so that he actually sensed what was in the dog's mind--that they must go down to the pool for a look before moving on. The thing was verified a moment later when Nels led the way down into the dim ravine to the margin of the water.

Tiger tracks--full four feet on the soft black margin of the pool--a huge beast, unmarked by any toe scar or eccentricity. Long body, heavy, a perfect thing of his kind. It was as if the tiger had stood some moments listening. Yet the natives declared that only the mated pair operated in this range and the hunter was said to have killed the male. If these were the tracks of the tigress she certainly was not badly hurt. There wasn't the overpressure of a single pad to indicate her favouring a muscle anywhere. And this couldn't have been the track of anything but a mature beast--the finished print of a perfect specimen.

"That hunter didn't tell it all, Nels, or else he didn't do it all,"

Skag remarked. "We started out to find a sick tigress and a hamper of neglected babies. I'm not saying we won't find that much. The thing is, we may find more."

Nels was already five yards away across the pebbly hollow, waiting for Skag to follow along the ravine. Not a sign of a track that human eye could detect after that--straight, dry, stony nullah bed, deeply shadowed from the narrow walls and stretching ahead apparently for miles. At least it was cool work; the sun would not touch the floor of the fissure for hours yet. Nels never faltered. His pace gradually quickened until Skag softly called. The Dane would remember for fifteen or twenty minutes, when Skag, again finding that he had to step uncomfortably fast to keep up, would laughingly call a check. The man was watching the walls and the coverts of broken rock, and Nels' speed, if left alone, altogether occupied his outer faculties.

It was eleven in the forenoon and Skag reckoned they must be close to the Nerbudda when Nels halted--even bristled a bit, his broad black muzzle quivering and held aloft. Skag came up softly and stood close.

He touched his finger to his tongue and drew a moist line under his nostrils, trying to get the message that Nels was working with so obviously. Presently an almost noiseless chuckle came from the man, and he touched Nels' shoulder as if to say that he had it too. The thing had come unexpectedly--the faintest possible taint of a lair.

They would have pa.s.sed it a hundred times if it had not been for the scent. The silence was absolute and the walls of the fissure apparently as unbroken as usual. No human eyes would have noted the wear of pads upon the stones, and one had to pa.s.s and look back to see the cleft in the walls of the ravine, far above the high-water mark, which formed the door of significant meaning for the man. Nels hadn't seen this much, but he couldn't miss now. He nosed the pebbles again and made an abrupt turn to the right. They climbed to the rocks near the entrance. The taint was unmistakable now--past doubt a bone pile of some kind in there--and Nels had followed Tiger to the door.

Skag sat down upon a stone a little below and mopped his forehead, with a smile at the Dane. For ten minutes he sat there. He thought of the first time he had ever entered a tiger cage as a mere boy, way back in the Middle West of the States, travelling with the circus. A bored show tiger in that cage, and he had blinked unconcernedly at the boy.

Years of circus life had atrophied that tiger's organs of resentment.

Miles and miles of the public stream had pa.s.sed his cage with awe, speculating upon the great cat's ferocity. Skag had merely to learn after that, the trick of it all--that one's perfect self-control not only soothes but disarms most normal beasts. Skag had cultivated such self-control in recent years to a degree that made him the astonishment of many Hindu minds. India had shown him that the attainment of this sort of poise is a stage of the same mastery that the mystics are out after--to gain complete command of the menagerie in one's own insides.

Hundreds of times after that, night and day, in storm, in sultry weather, Skag had entered the cages of all kinds of animals in all their moods.

His first adventure in India came back, when with his friend Cadman he had fallen into the pit trap and the grand young male tiger had tumbled after them. Skag had prevailed upon the nervy Cadman to sit tight and not to shoot, against all that the writer man knew; also he had appeared to prevail upon the tiger to keep his side of the pit until they were rescued. And now Skag recalled the big tiger that had lain on the river margin near the Monkey Glen while he had told Carlin that he had never really seen what a woman was like before. The presence of the big sleepy cat down among the wet foliage had nerved him and called out all his strength for that romantic crisis.

He thought of the moment under the poised head of the great serpent in the place of fear in the gra.s.s jungle; and of the coming of Nut Kut, the incomparable black elephant, whom he had forced to listen in spite of the red h.e.l.l in the untamable eyes. Always between and in and round, his thoughts were of Carlin--her voice, her presence, the curious art of her ministration and the utterly wise lure of her heart.

Even now he couldn't quite be calm under the whip of memory of the afternoon of the cobra fight. The whole panorama might have been named Carlin so far as Skag was concerned.

He didn't think of his own danger now. It wasn't that he ignored it; rather that he had entered upon a new dimension of his power. He had no thought of failure. No thought came to him that Carlin would have prevented his entering had she been near. This was different from anything he had ever been called to do, but his power was different.

The thing that engaged his mind was utterly clear from every angle. He couldn't have missed the novelty from the unusual stress of Nels'

manner. The big Dane was actually burning with excitement. His eyes were filled with firelight and back of the smoky burning was a dumb appeal turned to his chief. Hyenas alone had been able to break Nels'

nerve for himself, but he was frightened now for the man. The big bony jowl was steadily pressed like a knuckled hand against Skag's knee, the body only half lifted from the dry stones and cramped with tension.

Skag's eyes were turned up toward the mouth of the lair and his left hand fell to the Dane's head. The beast actually shook because his eyes were covered a second.

"Of course you're to stay outside, Nels," he said softly as he rose.

The dog lowered his breast to the stones. It was like a blow to him--the one thing he had feared most.

"Don't, Nels!" the man muttered. "You're to stand at the mouth of the lair and watch there. I need you there--outside, of course."

The dog followed him heavily up the slope past the high-water mark.

Skag turned with a cheering whisper, shielding his eyes from the light for a moment before peering in. There was a sound like blown paper across a marble floor and then another sound--low, soft, prolonged, like the hiss of escaping steam.

Skag shoved himself into the narrow, rocky aperture. He could see nothing for the moment. The taint was oppressive at the first breath of the still air. There were kittens--no doubt of that. He heard their scurrying; he felt their eyes and the sort of melting panic in the place that would have utterly unstrung any but a perfectly keyed set of nerves.

It was a cave, the mouth higher than the floor. The way down was jagged and precipitous. Skag, advancing softly, had to feel for each step and yet give no distracting attention to keep his footing, for the full energy of his faculties was directed ahead.

The sound of blown paper was from the kittens--that was clear enough.

Yet the hissing continued and this was the mystery of it all--that there appeared to be no movement besides. If this sound came from the tigress, at least, she had not stirred to meet him.

The hiss sunk to a low guttural grating. No cub had a cavernous profundity of sound such as that. Still there was not the stir of a muscle, so far as his senses had detected.

Skag was puzzled. Big game before him, possibly nerved to spring, and yet the tensity was not like that. The man stood still, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness--waiting for the mystery to clear.

Then to the right, like a little constellation suddenly p.r.i.c.king through the twilight, Skag saw a cl.u.s.ter of young stars. His heart warmed--kittens hunched there in a bundle and watching him. Their p.r.i.c.ked ears presently shadowed somewhat from the blacker background; then he saw the little party suddenly swept and overturned, as if a long thin arm had brushed them back out of reach of the intruder.

Now his eyes turned slightly to the left and began to get the rest--the great levelled creature upon the darkened floor. Skag kept his imagination down until his optic nerves actually brought him the picture. The long thin sweep was the mother's tail, yet she was not crouched. Skag saw her sprawled paws extended toward him. She lay upon her side.

Thus it was that he was rounded back to the original proposition. He had found the lair of the wounded tigress and her young. For fully two minutes Skag stood quiet before her, working softly--her hiss changing at slow intervals to the cavernous growl. The kittens were too young to organise attack--the tigress was too maimed for resistance, even though at bay in lair with her kittens to defend.

Now the man saw the gleam of her eyes. She had followed his movements and was holding him now, but half vacantly. The pity of it all touched him; the rest of the story cleared. Her tongue was like a blown bag, the blackness of it apparent even in the dark. She was dying of thirst, the bullet wound in the shoulder turned up to him. The little ones were still active, for the tigress had fed them until her whole body was drained. He saw how her breast had been torn by the thirsty little ones--the open sores against the soft grey of her nether parts.

Skag backed out. Nels pressed him--half lifted his great body in silent welcome.

"Oh, yes," Skag was saying, "we got the call, all right, my son. Four little duds in there eating their mother alive, and she full of fever from a wound--no water for days. I'm just after the canteen, Nels."

Skag entered again. His movements were deliberate, but not stealthy.

He spoke softly to the creature on the floor--his voice lower than the usual pitch, yet sinking often deeper still. The words were mere nothings, but they carried the man's purpose of kindness--carried it steadily, tirelessly. The great beast tried to rise as he stepped closer. Skag waited, still talking. He had uncorked the canteen and held it forward--his idea being not only that she would smell the water but become accustomed to the thing in his hand. Each time he pressed a bit nearer she struggled to rise toward him--Skag standing just out of reach, tirelessly working with his mind and voice. He keenly registered her pain and helplessness in his own consciousness and was unwilling to prolong it, yet at the same time he had a very clear understanding of the patience required to bring help to her.

It was fully a quarter of an hour before he bent close, without starting a convulsion of fear and revolt in the huge fevered body upon the rocky floor. Skag poured a gurgle of water upon the swollen tongue, watching the single baleful tortured eye that held his face.

The water was not wasted, though not drunk, for it washed away some of the poison formed of the fever and the thirst. Skag poured again and for a second the great holding eye was lost to him and the tongue moved.

Thus he worked, permitting her fear and rage to rouse no answer in kind from himself; talking to her softly, luring her out of fury into the enveloping madness of her own great need.

He waited a moment and her tongue stretched thickly to draw to itself the water on the rock; then he turned toward the cubs. They scurried back deeper into the cave. He poured a gill or two of water into a hollow of the rock and returned to the mother. Presently as he moistened her tongue again, one of the little ones crept forward and began to lap the puddle on the rock.

Skag smiled in the gloom. The others were presently beside the baby leader. A few moments later Skag interrupted his ministrations to the mother to fill the hollow for the kittens again. All this with less than three pints of water--the work of a full half hour as he found when he emerged to Nels and the light.

"It's only a beginning, old man. We've got to get more water. It's five hours' march back to the pool where we camped. I'm gambling that we're a lot nearer than that to the Nerbudda."

Nels' jubilation was stayed by the unfolding of fresh plans that were not slow to dawn upon his eager mind. They hastened along the river bed, continuing in the direction they had come. Skag was in a queer elation, dropping a sentence from time to time. Suddenly he halted.

It had occurred to him to recall something his mind had merely noted during the work in the cave. There was fresh meat there. He had not looked close, but at least two partly devoured carca.s.ses had lain in the shadows.

"They were mighty thirsty, Nels," he muttered. "The mother dying of thirst, but the little ones were only sultry compared. Yes, they're old enough to tear at fresh meat. They weren't so bad off and there was plenty of meat there. Only thirsty," he added thoughtfully.

It was clear to his mind that the tigress had been helpless at least three days, possibly four. She could not have brought the game. There was one conclusive reason--that the meat was in an altogether too fresh condition to have been brought by the mother before she gave up. Skag walked rapidly. They did not reach the Nerbudda, but sighted a village back Horn the river bed after nearly two hours' walk.

They refilled the canteens and procured two water skins besides; also a broad deep gourd which Skag carried empty. The man's difficulty was to escape without a.s.sistance. A white man in his position was not supposed to carry goatskin water bags over his shoulders. The boys of the village followed him after the elders had given up, and Skag halted at last to explain that this was an affair that would interest them very much--when a teller came back to tell the story; but that this was the doing part of the story and must be carried to its conclusion alone.

A little later in the nullah bed he fastened the canteen and the gourd to Nels' collar, but continued to pack the two skins himself--a rather arduous journey in full Indian daylight with between forty and fifty pounds of water on his shoulders. It was four in the afternoon when they neared the mouth of the lair and Nels was drooping again.

"Buck up, old man!" Skag said. "I'll go in for a while with the thirsty ones. Then we'll make a camp and have some supper together."

Skag heard the hiss again as he entered the darkness, and the kittens were not so still as before. Only a trifle less leisurely he approached the mother. He knew that any strength that had come would only feed her hostility so far; that a man was not to win the confidence of a great mammal thing like this in a day. His first impulse was to silence the kittens with a gourd of water, but he could not bear to make the mother wait.