Stories from Everybody's Magazine Part 36

"And lion, too, I imagine?"

"Y--as."

"Ought to get some giraffe on the way, hadn't we?"

"Y--as."

"Rhino pretty scarce just now, though, aren't they?"

"Y--as," Curry answered placidly.

Thus it soon became apparent that Curry's chief ambition was to agree pleasantly with whatever anybody said, which tended to discredit any information he had to impart. So, as a matter of course, the questions ceased, and when no more were asked him Curry's conversation ceased also.

It was rough going for the ox-wagons those first ten miles, and they made slow time of it along the base of the hills. According to our custom on the march, the Colonel and the two cowboys, the picture department (composed of Kearton and Gobbet), and Ulyate (the white hunter) and myself rode in a widely extended line in front of the safari, sweeping the country for game. It was hot at the base of the hills--so hot that when your bridle hand dropped inadvertently to the pommel of the saddle, the bra.s.s mounting there seemed to burn you. Not a breath of air was stirring, and the sun shone down blazing through the wisps of smoke haze, and the heat waves rose from the dead, parched veldt so that the distant southern volcano looked all quivering.

Then from out the blurred vista in front little by little a clump of comparatively large trees began to take definite shape.

Another half mile farther, and we saw that something was moving among the trees as high up as the topmost branches.

"Giraffe," said Ulyate, and no sooner had he spoken the word than the great, towering animals wheeled and fled from their shelter with that long-legged gallop of theirs which looks so easy and slow, but which carries them over the ground as fast as a speedy horse can run.

The Colonel and the two cowboys set off at a hand gallop in a vain attempt to round them up and drive them back to the cameras.

The race was a hopeless one for the hors.e.m.e.n from the start. But, according to the general method of operations adopted by the Colonel from the very beginning, no chance of a capture, however slim it might appear, was to remain untried so long as men and horses could endure.

The two ruts of the wagon road led close by the grove of trees, and when the rest of us reached this spot and dismounted to await results, the three leading hors.e.m.e.n had disappeared long ago into the scrub-grown country to the south.

As noon approached, the heat became more and more oppressive. The cameras had been screwed to the tripods and covered with our coats to protect them from the sun. The horses grazed near by.

Mac was sent up one of the trees to warn us of the approach of anything like a giraffe, and the rest of us sat on the ground round the bole in the small circle of thin shade and lazily watched the black ants always crawling and climbing and zigzagging back and forth over the network of fallen twigs and leaves. It was too hot to talk--it was too hot to sleep or think.

And by and by the ox-wagons came up, and the oxen brought the flies. For a time then the only sounds were the slow crunching of the feeding horses and an occasional inarticulate snarl from some one or other who foolishly tried to brush the flies away from his face.

Eventually, after a long time had pa.s.sed, Means rode into the grove of trees, un-heralded by Mac and alone. The bay horse had fallen badly, wrenching his rider's back where once he had been hurt before. Means took his saddle off, threw it on the ground, and sat on it.

"He dropped into a pig hole," he explained, "an' hopped out again as neat as could be. But in hoppin' out he hopped into another, an' that just naturally discouraged him an' he come down with me."

No comments were made, nor did Means expect any. But evidently he had considered it only justice to the bay that the mishap should receive from him the proper explanation.

Then Loveless returned, also alone. He made a few grumbling remarks about its being all nonsense to run the horses to death when there was no chance at all. But as his listeners showed not the slightest interest in the matter, he, too, relapsed into silence.

The Colonel was the last to come in. He rode straight to the tree where the company were gathered, dismounted, and sat down. Then he spoke to the world at large.

"They must be about here somewhere," he said. "And being about here somewhere, we'll get 'em yet."

When the shadow beneath the tree began to lengthen toward the east, the safari shook itself together and prepared to move on once more. But this time, instead of occupying his customary position at the head of the column, the Colonel lagged behind.

Immediately after leaving the grove of trees, the road commenced to climb the first rises of the Mau escarpment. As we mounted higher up the hillside, the view behind us opened out into a grand panorama of the two valleys and their sentinel volcanoes, with the smoke haze hanging over all. For a time, those of us who were in front rode half sideways in the saddle, looking back over the way we had come and over the district we had grown to know so well. Then we crossed a small, level park that formed the crest of the first hill, and as we moved down the western slope the view behind us disappeared and the new country spread before us.

Kearton was riding with his head sunk on his chest like a sick man. Gobbet asked if anything was wrong with him.

"Nothing bad; too much heat this morning, likely."

"Want to hunt a bit of shade and lie up awhile? "

"No, I'll go on."

Gobbet shrugged his shoulders. "You're the judge," he said.

Hill after hill stretched away in front to the one upstanding kopje that marked the top of the Mau. The district was wooded with small, twisted trees, and the fire had crossed here, so that the ground was black and the air smelled stronger of burning.

Presently Means stopped. "I'd better wait till the Colonel comes along," he explained. "The Colonel don't carry any weapons."

Loveless stopped with him, and, as Ulyate was somewhere behind with the ox-wagons and porters, this left Kearton, Gobbet, and myself to ride on by ourselves. For a mile or more the road lifted and dipped with monotonous regularity, and the burnt land was still on either hand, without a sign of life anywhere to be seen. So when the sun really began to decline toward the west, Gobbet, who had once been a.s.sistant manager of the Alhambra Music Hall in Brighton, told the story of Harry Lauder and the liquid air biscuits, and it seemed to do Kearton good. Kearton had just told Gobbet to quit his lying, when all three of us realized that for the last half minute we had been unconsciously listening to the beat of a galloping horse on the road behind.

The next instant Ulyate pulled up in a cloud of dust.

"Colonel wants you," he said. "They've rounded up a giraffe."

We wheeled the horses and started back on the run.

"About--three--miles! Left--of the--road!" Ulyate shouted after us.

There were various reasons that called for haste. How long the ropers could keep the giraffe rounded up was especially uncertain, and then, besides, it was near the end of the day and soon the light would be too far gone for a picture.

We met the line of porters and they scattered right and left.

Farther on, the ox-teams crowded one side to give us room. Then we came upon the four special porters with the cameras. Kearton took his machine on the saddle with him, and Gobbet caught up the tripod from another pair of outstretched arms.

When we reached the bit of clearing and looked to the left of the road, we saw the long neck and head of a giraffe sharply outlined against the sky.

The giraffe stood motionless. His feet were spread a little apart as though he was prepared to dash away again at the first opportunity, and he gazed in a curious way first at one, then at another of the three ropers that surrounded him and now sat their horses, waiting. There was still enough light left for a picture, but Kearton was nearly done.

"Give him a minute's breather," said the Colonel. " We'll hold the critter till he's ready."

We took Kearton off his horse and stretched him on the ground and poured the lukewarm water from a canteen on his head. Meanwhile Cobbet screwed the camera to the tripod and set it up.

By the time Gobbet had finished, Kearton was on his feet again.

From his position near by, Means ventured the opinion that it was too much excitement that had knocked him over, and Kearton swore back at him pleasantly and went to work.

A high-pitched yell from the Colonel sent the giraffe away across the open with that clumsy-looking, powerful gallop that is all his own, and with his long neck plunging slowly back and forth.

Loveless's black, one of the fastest horses in the string, had hard work to gain on the giraffe, expecially as the animal swerved quickly at the last moment and fled down the eastern slope of the hill through the scrub where the going was none too good.

It was a difficult throw--and a new one for a Western cowboy--to send the noose so far up into the air over the head perched high on the long, swaying neck.

But at the first attempt Loveless succeeded, and then reined in gently so as not to throw the beast, because a giraffe would fall heavily, and would very likely break his neck or a leg if tumbled over.

Finally he was brought to a standstill, his feet spread apart as before, and for a while the two stood facing each other--the cowboy and the towering giraffe, with the rope from the saddle horn leading up at a considerable angle to the shoulders of the prize. The rest of the hunt soon gathered about them. Although the light was rapidly failing, Kearton finished what was left of his roll of film. The whir of the camera ended with a peculiar flapping sound.

"That's all," said Kearton, and sank down on a near-by stone.

But Loveless and the giraffe continued to face each other undisturbed.