Stories from Everybody's Magazine Part 37

"Well?" said Loveless, presently.

"Well?" echoed the Colonel.

"Well, how are we going to take this rope off him? We've got none to spare, you know."

"Get a ladder," suggested Means.

"No, we won't need a ladder," said the Colonel seriously, "but we'll have to throw him, after all. We can do it gently, I guess, without hurting him."

Accordingly, Means roped the giraffe by one hind leg and pulled it out from under him, so that he sank easily to the ground and both the ropes were loosened and freed.

The sun had set and the short twilight was rapidly deepening. The ox-wagons and porters were several miles ahead. So we packed up the camera, coiled up the ropes, mounted, and rode away, and the giraffe raised himself on his haunches among the bushes and watched us go.

We camped at a water hole that night, and started on again the next morning in the darkness before the dawn, with a porter ahead carrying a lantern to show the way. With ox-wagons it is a three days' journey from that water hole to the Guas Nyiro River at the border of the Sotik. The country through which we pa.s.sed continued to be the same as that of the Mau escarpment--a succession of low hills and shallow valleys covered with the small, twisted trees. And there was plenty of water on the way.

But there was no game in the district.

We had been told before starting that we need not expect to see anything on the way, because antelope, zebra, and such like animals avoid the wooded section so as not to be caught unaware by lions, and, since the prey seek the safety of the open plains, the lions are compelled to follow.

In spite of this fact, and although the dense woods and broken ground generally forced the safari to keep to the road, the cowboys were always ready and the cameras, always loaded with film. But the land on either side remained silent and deserted.

And each day's journey was the same as the one before; the start in the gray of the morning, the long, hot ride, with the road gently rising and falling over the hills, and the sudden cool of the evening when the sun went down. At times the camera department would take moving pictures of the wagons and porters crossing a river, where an especially picturesque bit of scenery offered an attractive setting. Occasionally Means, as he rode along, would commence singing one of the songs of our Western plains, verse after verse, seemingly without end, recounting in detail some local historical event, such as an Indian attack on an army post, a shooting affair at a dance, or a train-robber's hanging. He would sing more to himself than to anybody else, and if this began to bore him at all, he would stop in the middle and leave the story untold.

Then sometimes, when we outspanned for an hour at noon, the four special camera porters would give imitations of Kearton and Gobbet taking pictures, of Loveless shoeing horses, or of Means in the act of roping. And in the evenings, when the day's march was done and the outpost fires had been lighted, the talk of the company would turn to our chances of finding luck in the Sotik country that lay ahead.

In the afternoon of March 16 we reached Webb's Farm, in the Guas Nyiro valley, which lies at the edge of the big plains. In this neighborhood there were three farms--Webb's, Curry's, and Agate's--and on the evening of our arrival some of their men paid a visit to the camp. They had heard of the expedition, and each in turn examined the horses, the dogs, the ropes, and the saddles, and then, like the hunters at Nairobi, asked the inevitable question:

"But how are you going to do it?"

"Oh, we'll do it somehow," the Colonel replied good-naturedly.

And the visitors shook their heads a little and smiled and changed the subject.

But to attempt to rope a rhinoceros or a lion required fresh horses, and ever since we had left Nairobi, nearly a fortnight ago, we had worked our horses hard every day. Now that we had reached the land of the big game, the Colonel for the first time called a day of rest. So we loafed about camp from sunrise to sunset and by evening were heartily sick of it all.

Perhaps we had expected too much of this Sotik country; perhaps the expedition was running, temporarily, in a streak of bad luck; but the fact remains that when we resumed hunting on March 18, disappointment only followed disappointment.

As we had done in the Rift Valley, so here we adopted the method of sweeping the country with a widely extended line. The first day we rode far to the southward, to the Hot Springs and back, and found nothing, and an unreasoning depression settled upon the expedition. The next day we rode still farther, to the westward this time, and again found nothing, and so the depression deepened. Also on the afternoon of this day it rained heavily, and Curry agreed with Ulyate that this probably meant the beginning of the rainy season, which was already overdue.

That night at the supper table the Colonel spoke his mind. The rain was dripping through the canvas fly overhead, and the Colonel wore his broad-brimmed hat to help keep the water off his plate.

"There's no use hanging round here any longer," he said, "not a bit of use. We haven't seen anything, nor a sign of anything.

When the rains begin in earnest, this ground will soften fast an'

the horses will get bogged an' we'll have to quit. So from now on we've got to work fast. Now Ulyate says there's water about twelve miles from here to the north--called the Soda Swamp. We'll start for the Soda Swamp in the morning."

Again it was moving day. The morning dawned fine after the rain, and the air was clear, and the country looked greener and fresher than it had ever looked before. By the time the sun rose, the first wagon was packed, so the safari set out on the journey, leaving the second wagon to load and follow our tracks, for there was no road to the Soda Swamp.

At the last moment the Colonel decided that he and the cowboys might just as well make a circuit to the westward of the line of march on the off chance of finding game.

"We covered that district pretty thoroughly yesterday," he said.

"But still, you never can tell."

Yet n.o.body thought it worth while for the camera department to go with them, and so Kearton and Gobbet and the four special porters trailed along with the slow, plodding wagon. In the first place, the wagons would follow the shortest route and the horses would be none the worse for an easy day; in the second, if by the remotest chance the Colonel flushed anything worth while, he could more easily find the cameras.

Curry had remained behind to bring on the second load, and soon Ulyate left us to make a detour past Agate's farm to procure another sack of rice that was badly needed. Ours was a large safari, and the details of transportation required close attention.

The morning wore on. The sky remained clear and the heat became intense. The direction in which we were traveling led us along the border of the plains, through small green parks, scattered groves of trees, and scrub.

So far as the mounted men were concerned, the march was a succession of rides and halts. The heavily laden ox-wagon traveled slowly, and it soon became our custom to dismount in a bit of shade and let the wagon pa.s.s ahead about a mile, when we would mount again and catch up with it and then repeat the process.

At one of these places there was a gra.s.s-grown mound against which we sat, leaning comfortably, and speculated on the distance we had come and the distance we had to go. When, after a while, it became evident that we should never agree in the matter, the conversation altered to a sort of spasmodic affair.

"I thought this district was so full of big game that you couldn't sleep at night for the lions roaring around you," Gobbet remarked lazily.

"Wait till you get among them," said Kearton. "Sais, keep that horse farther away; he'll be walking on us next."

"Well, I haven't been kept awake any yet," Gobbet replied.

"I wonder where that wagon's got to," and Kearton raised himself on one elbow and peered ahead from beneath the down-tilted brim of his helmet. Then he lay back again and shut his eyes.

"Means is coming," he said.

The announcement occasioned no surprise. Undoubtedly Means had some reason for returning over the trail, and when he reached the mound we should probably learn what he wanted.

Means dismounted and sat down beside us. "We've found a rhino over in the next valley yonder," he remarked, and nodded his head toward the west.

"A rhino is no matter to joke about," said Gobbet. "Please remember that in future."

"I'm not jokin'," said Means. "Colonel's watchin' him. Loveless stopped halfway here, about three miles off. Colonel sent me to bring the rest of you and get the heavy rope."

"Is that right, Means?" Kearton asked sharply.

"Sure."

"Come on, then."

In five minutes we had overtaken the wagon and stopped it, and while Means clambered up on to the load to hunt for the heavy rope, Kearton collected the camera porters and started ahead with them in the direction Means pointed out.

But Means could not find the rope he wanted. He threw off half the load without success.

"It's on the other wagon. There's where it is," he finally concluded. "No time to wait now. Other wagon likely hasn't started yet. We'll have to do with what we've got."

We rode on at an easy jog to keep the horses fresh, and at the end of half an hour we came upon Loveless waiting for us just beneath the crest of a rise. He had off-saddled his horse and had turned him loose to graze a bit before the coming work, and a few minutes were occupied while Loveless saddled up again and Kearton and Gobbet adjusted their cameras and took them on their horses.

Finally every one was ready, and we set forth once more on a wide detour to the north to approach the beast from down the wind.

Loveless gave us the latest news: "The Colonel came over the rise a half hour ago and said the rhino was laying down resting quiet.

The Colonel went back again at once to keep watch."

As we proceeded farther on the circuit and began to ride down the gentle slope into the adjacent valley, we slowed down the pace to a cautious walk. No one spoke, and on the gra.s.s of the veldt the tread of the horses made scarcely any sound.