Stories from Everybody's Magazine Part 40

By CLARENCE URMY

Stand here, and watch the wondrous birth of Dreams From out the Gate of Silence. Time and Tide, With fingers on their lips, forever bide In large-eyed wonderment, where Thoughts and Themes Of days long flown pa.s.s down the slumbrous streams To ports of Poet-land and Song-land. Side By side the many-colored Visions glide, And leave a wake where Fancy glows and gleams.

And then the bells! One stands with low-bowed head While list'ning to their silver tongues recite The sweet tale of the Angelus--there slips A white dove low across the tiling red-- And as we breathe a whispered, fond "Good night,"

A "Pax vobisc.u.m" parts the Padre's lips.

XXIII No. 5 NOVEMBER, 1910

La.s.soing WILD ANIMALS In Africa {pages 609-621}

By GUY H. SCULL

FIELD OF THE BUFFALO JONES AFRICAN EXPEDITION.

III

There was no use trying to avoid the fact any longer. The lions, for the present, had left the Sotik country, and by remaining in camp at the Soda Swamp the Buffalo Jones Expedition was only wasting time. And time was precious then--was growing more precious every day--if we expected to finish the work before the rains.

The lion was the only big game we wanted now to complete the list of wild animals roped and tied, and the lion was the most important of all. The expedition had traveled the long journey to the Sotik country especially to find them. Yet ever since the capture of the rhinoceros on the moving day of March 20th we had thoroughly swept the land in the vicinity of the Soda Swamp without finding even a single spoor.

---- The blurred effect of the unique ill.u.s.trations to this article is accounted for by the extreme difficulty of reproducing from a cinematograph film.

It simply meant that the lions were not there. Some explanations were offered, some arguments arose as to the whys and wherefores of this state of affairs. A few maintained that the lions had always been found there before; it was strange they should have gone. A theory was advanced that the rains were late and the country was unusually dry, so that the game had shifted to better pastures. Perhaps some water hole they depended on had failed.

There is generally some discussion on such occasions. We had counted so much on the Sotik to give us our chance that the truth was hard to realize at first. But no matter what the cause might be, we were finally forced to acknowledge the undeniable fact--the lions had left the district.

On the evening of March 25 the expedition faced the situation. As usual, the night fell cold, and when supper was finished the company collected about the fire that was burning close to the horses. A light wind stirred in the leaves overhead and the sky was full of stars. Here and there a tired horse was already half asleep, and his head nodded gently in the firelight. From the darkness came the low talk of the saises, rolled in their blankets on the ground at the end of the picket line.

Most of the men stood with their backs to the flames, gazing vacantly at the horses, the trees, or the stars. For a while not a word was said. Means threw another log on the fire and then squatted on his heels and silently watched the flames catch the bark and flare up brightly. As the heat increased, Kearton took a step farther away and stood again. Every one knew that the Sotik had failed us and that it was time for us to go, and so eventually when the Colonel spoke he only voiced the general conclusion.

"We've got to go back," he said, speaking straight in front of him at the nearest of the sleepy horses. "We've got to go to-morrow and have a try from the water hole at the Rugged Rocks where we saw the two lions on the way out here. We may find one there and we may not. If we don't, we've got to go on to Nairobi and start all over again--provided the rains don't begin."

Accordingly, through the long hot days the safari plodded back over the way we had come from the Soda Swamp to Agate's, from Agate's to the Honeybird River, and then on once more to the Last Water. The cameras were stowed away on the wagons, the ropes remained coiled on the saddles, for there was no probability of our finding lions on the way. And each man rode as his judgment decreed, because the business of the safari then was to get on over the road, and the ox-wagons behind came along as best they could.

For the most part it was a silent journey. The expedition had turned its back on the district that only a short week ago had held out such alluring promises, and any day now the rains might commence effectually to put a stop to the work before it was done. Then, too--although this may seem to be a small matter, still it had weight with all of us--the white hunters of the country had ridiculed the idea of our being able to rope a lion, and the prospect of returning and admitting defeat without having been given a proper chance was not pleasant to contemplate.

At the Last Water we outspanned for the night and most of the succeeding day. In view of the situation, the long halt was absolutely necessary to give the oxen a good rest and drink before setting forth on the twenty-four-hour journey without water to the Rugged Rocks. But throughout the dragging hours of the enforced rest always there loomed ahead of us the possibility of failure and the need of haste. No mention was made of this openly. The only sign of our underlying anxiety was a vague restlessness pervading the entire safari.

Once on the march again, with the sun low in the west, the restlessness disappeared. The night came dark, because the moon rose late, and the air was still, so that the dust that lifted from beneath the feet of the oxen drifted along with the wagon.

Now and again one of the wheels b.u.mped over a rock in the road and the brake beam shook and rattled. At times the high-pitched cries of the native drivers pierced the stillness. Ahead of us the bulk of the wagon load loomed big against the stars.

When the dying moon first showed red through the branches of the twisted trees, the safari crossed the top of the Mau and commenced the slow descent to the valley, and the wagons in front became lost in the darkness and the dust. When the morning star rose, we had come to the foothills of the escarpment, and the dawn wind sprang up cold, so that the men shivered a little in their saddles and b.u.t.toned up their coats and began to talk.

"It was just about here that we caught the giraffe that day,"

said Kearton. "Remember? And wasn't it hot?"

The talk drifted aimlessly, round and about from the western ranches to Flicker Alley and the London Music Halls, only to return in the end, as it naturally would, to the water hole at Rugged Rocks and our chances of finding lion. The discussion was lengthy on this point--it always was.

By the time the sun came, the expedition had entered the plain of the Rift Valley, and with the rising of the sun the thirst began.

Toward noon we halted for a couple of hours to allow the worst of the heat to pa.s.s over, gave the horses and the porters a little of the water that was carried on one of the wagons, and then inspanned again and went on. As the hors.e.m.e.n took the road the Colonel outlined his plan.

"We'll give the horses a good rest to-night, for we ought to make camp early, and then start hunting the first thing in the morning. We've got enough horse-feed to last us three or four days if the water holds out that long. In that time we ought to get a lion if there's any there. I'll ride on now a bit and look for signs."

The Colonel's horse was a faster walker than the others and slowly he forged ahead. Little by little the safari began to string out along the road until wide s.p.a.ces grew between the ox-wagons, with the porters straggling after them a mile behind.

A change had come over the valley since we had seen it last. The land was whiter beneath the blazing sunshine and the dust lay thicker in the road. Somehow it seemed deserted. The only movement was the shimmer of the heat waves.

The camera department had the slowest mounts, and as the march had become a plodding procession, in which the horses were allowed to choose their own paces, one by one the other members of the expedition pa.s.sed us.

Loveless came from behind and rode with us for half a mile or so.

"I've been thinking this thing over," he finally said, "and my idea is that after the dogs get the lion stopped, one of us can go by him, rope him, and keep on going, and then the other fellow can catch him by the hind legs and we've got him. If you keep on going fast enough, I don't think he'll have a chance to spring at you."

In the pause that followed the delivery of this opinion on a matter that had been thrashed out a hundred times before, his horse gradually carried him farther ahead until he had gone beyond the range of talk.

Ulyate, the white hunter, was the next. Kearton had just finished filling his pipe and he silently reached out the bag of tobacco.

But Ulyate shook his head.

"Throat's too dry," he said. "But I want to be sure I understand what I've got to do. I'm to stand by to protect the cameras and leave the Colonel and the two boys to look after themselves. If the lion charges them I'm not to fire--only if he comes at the cameras."

"That's right--only if he comes at the cameras."

"That's what I thought, but I wanted to make sure--It's a likely place, this Rugged Rocks," he continued over his shoulder. "We might easily find one to-morrow."

Means on his big bay borrowed a drink of water from Gobbet's canteen, and rode on after the others.

The march of the safari grew slower and slower. The road was flat, bending a little back and forth in long, sweeping curves, like a rope that was once taut and had been loosened. The native drivers no longer cried at the oxen, for the beasts knew by instinct that they were traveling to water and could be relied upon to do their best; and the men rode with their heads hung down, watching the shadows of the horses on the road and hoping to see them lengthen.

The Colonel, the two cowboys, and Ulyate reached the Rugged Rocks at least an hour ahead, and when the rest of us came straggling in we found them seated on the ground with their backs to the bole of a tree. None of them looked up as we halted there, dismounted, and turned the horses loose. Then Ulyate spoke.

"Water hole has dried," he said.

There was nothing to be done about it. If the water hole had dried, it had dried. That was all. And we had to push on to Kijabe. Lions or no lions, there was no appeal from that decree.

So we sat down with the others and watched the progress of the far-off dust cloud that marked the approaching wagons. Then, when darkness came again, the safari resumed the march.

But the Colonel refused to abandon his former plan entirely without making at least one more attempt. Together with the two cowboys and Kearton, he remained behind to scout at dawn the district between the Rugged Rocks and the railway.

"We might be able to tell if it's worth while to come back here,"

he explained.

It was nearly noon of the following day before the scouting party rejoined the expedition on the platform of the Kijabe station.

The party reported that near the base of Longernot, the northern volcano, a belt of lava rock rises perpendicularly from the plain. Close to the southern end of this belt they had flushed two lions, a male and a female, and had kept sight of them for fully an hour. It was the opinion of all in the party that the lions lived in the neighborhood, probably in the rocks.

"Very likely," said Ulyate; "no one has ever hunted that corner of the valley. There is no water there."

At first the Colonel was anxious to start back for them at once, hauling the water with us; but after a moment's reflection he was compelled to concede that it was time to call a halt. Means had strained his back again and could no longer sit straight in the saddle. An old thorn wound in Loveless's foot needed attention.

Horses, dogs, and oxen were entirely f.a.gged out. And besides, the camera department demanded time to develop the earlier pictures, already too long kept in the rolls.