Tales from the Veld Part 7

"'Shall we foller him!' says I.

"Bolo he grunted. For a heathen he's spry, but it was his lazy time, and for another thing he was in the middle of a long-winded story, which he was bound to finish, being a born talker, and very strong ag'inst being interrupted.

"'Chet-chet-chet-chee!' said the honey-bird, jumping from one branch to another all in a quiver of impatience.

"'Come on,' says I, 'let's see what sort of a nest he's got.'

"'That bird is a mischief bird,' said Bolo; 'he will lead us to a snake or a tiger. Eweh! to the black tiger.'

"'How?' says I.

"'Why,' says he, 'if he were a good bird he would sit away over there on that thorn bush and wait till we have finished our talk. This bird is too anxious.'

"Just then that bird flew away, off to the thorn tree, and there he sat dumb.

"'By Jimminy,' says I, 'that's funny.'

"Bolo he took a pinch of snuff, and he drove on with his story, with his 'congella wetu,' and his 'ke-ke-lo-ko-ke,' jes' 's if nothing had happened, while I sat with my eyes fixed on that there bird.

"Well, the longest river reaches the sea some time, and at last Bolo finished that yarn, and what it was about I couldn't tell you, sonny.

'Now,' says I, 'let us investigate this matter,' and hang me ef at that precise moment of the ending of that yarn, the bird didn't come back, all agog with his news.

"Bolo he shook his head. 'That bird is no bird,' he says, 'it's a familiar.'

"'Whose familiar?' says I.

"'It belongs to that dog of a Fingo,' naming a rival medicine man, 'or else 'tis a slave of the black tiger sent to lead us into a trap.'

"'Well,' says I, 'honey is sweet, though it gives a man a bad _pense_, as the Royal motter says, and I'm for follering him.' So up I got, and that bird he jes' flew off, lighting here an' lighting there, so as I could keep up, and after a mile he sot still as death on a thorn bush.

"'Is this the place?' says I.

"The honey-bird kep' quiet, but he jes' turn his eye on me all of a sparkle.

"Well, I jes' sniffed aroun' and squinted aroun', and in a brace of shakes I spotted the honey nest in a hollow ant-hill. Well, I scooted back to the house for a bucket, and after smokin' the bees, got out fifty pound weight of the finest sealed honey, not forgetting to set a piece of comb with young bees in it for the bird.

"Well, Bolo was pretty sick when he saw me come in with that bucket full, and he was standing there saying he knew all along that bird was a good bird, but he didn't want to find the honey seeing as it was on my farm, and he'd be sure to find it first, whereby he could claim half, which was against hospitality. Right there, sonny, that there bird come and perched on the roof. 'Chet-chet-chee!' says he, as excited as if he hadn't had a meal for a month. I see it was the same bird, for there was a stickiness about his head.

"'Oh, aie;' says Bolo, then he shouted from his chest. 'My little friend in the grey suit, lead on!'

"Well, the bird flew off, and Bolo, he went after, whistling and calling it good names. I jest pottered about by the house into the afternoon, looking out every now and ag'in to see if Bolo were coming back, when of a sudden I see him tearing acrost the veld. He shot by me into the house, and hang me if he didn't bang the door in my face, and at the same time that honey-bird lighted on the roof. You never see sich a sight as that bird. He opened his mouth, spread his wings, rolled about and laughed fit to bust himself. Bymby he flew away with a final screech, and Bolo opened the door, his natrally black face being green, his lips curled back from his teeth, and his eyes rolling. I up with a beaker of water and threw it in his face to cool him off--and he came round.

"'Did you find the honey-tree?' says I.

"'Honey-tree!' says he, and his eyes began to roll ag'in, as though he were trying to look inside his head. 'There were no honey-tree. It was a bad bird I knew it, I told you, and you would not believe the words of the wise man. I am going--where are my kerries?'

"'What happened?'

"'This. Listen. I followed the evil thing. It led me across the veld and a thorn caught me by the leg. It was a warning, but I did not heed, I went on across the ridge to the kloof, and into the kloof to a hollow tree. I heard the owl cry, the night-bird calling in the day, giving another warning, but I was deaf. I smelt honey, and there were no bees flying in the hole; but the smell of honey was strong. Into the hole I was about to thrust my arm when I saw on the bark long scratches. I looked up through the plume on my head, so, without turning my face, and up above on a branch I saw a black form stretching out and yellow eyes fixed on me; at the same time out of the hollow of the tree there came a low laugh, strange, fearful, not of man, and with a spring backwards and a bound sideways, I was off like the deer, with the roar of the black tiger in my ears.'

"So said Bolo, and without further words he took his kerries and his bag, and he went away over the hill to the north, running. Yes, lad, he quit at a gallop."

"And what do you think of this story, Uncle Abe?"

"I've done a lot of thinking about it. I thunked that there wooden shetter for the window as a protection."

"Surely you don't believe that Bolo was led deliberately by the honey-bird to the tiger?"

"Maybe I do. Maybe the bird led him to a sure enough bee-tree. Maybe Bolo happened on the black critter. Maybe he were skeered at a shadder.

I dunno; but I tell you I see the bird laf fit to bust, and there's more in the ways of these animiles than we can catch hold of--a jolly sight more."

"Well, then, bring your gun along and we'll put the dog on the tiger's spoor."

"Not this child! No, no, sonny! You leave me to get the blind side of that tiger; but I've got my own plan, and it's not tracking him I am when he's on the watch. Not me."

"What plan, Uncle?"

"There's a powerful thinking machine in a honey-bird," said the old man slowly, so dismissing his plan from the talk; "and when you come to think of it, the first bird that led a man to a nest must ha' been a great diskiverer--a greater diskiverer in his way than was that Columbus chap who smashed the egg. That bird must a reckoned the whole thing out, an' if he could a reckoned way back in the years, why, it stands to reason his children, after all the experience they've larnt, must reckon a lot more. One day one of these birds called me, and I picked up a bucket and a chopper, and followed after him at a run, for he was in a mighty hurry, being, as I thought, hungry. It warn't that, sonny. He was jes' mean, and he knew it, for the bee-tree he were leading me to belonged to another bird. I found that out when that bird come along.

The two of them had a argument--the new one expostulatin', the other one jes' ansering in a don't-care way. The second one he flew off--yelling threats, and the other one, after bunching himself up, suddenly lit out ag'in with me after him. I found the tree, took out the honey, and gave the bird a piece of comb. Then, as I was sittin' down with the pipe, up came a hull lot of birds, with a black-headed, white-throated fiscal-- the chap with a hooked beak who sticks the gra.s.shoppers on thorns out of sheer devilment. Well, sonny, believe me, those birds they jes' up and tried that honey-bird, the other chap giving evidence. The jury, which were composed of a yellow oriole, a blue spreuw, and a mouse-bird, they found my bird guilty, and a old white ringed crow, who was the jedge, p.r.o.nounced sentence of death. My bird didn't say nothing. He jes' sot there with a piece of honey in his mouth, and a set, gloomy look in his eye. After the verdict that fiscal he swooped down, fixed his claws in the prisoner's breast, and yanked his head off his neck with a twist.

It was summery justice on that bird for taking possession of the other bird's honey-tree. Yes, the fiscal he just yanked the prisoner's head off, and the body fell to the ground. Then the jedge he buried the bird."

"How was that?"

"He jes' ate it. He jes' flopped down, give a caw, and swallowed the corpse. I went home then, thinking as how they might try me for aiding and abetting a crime."

CHAPTER NINE.

UNCLE ABE AND THE WILD DOGS.

There can be no denying that we were reaping a plentiful crop of misfortunes, to which farmers in South Africa are especially exposed.

The cattle thieves had mysteriously come and swiftly gone, taking with them a few head of stock into the dense cover of the Fish River Bush, thence to slip them at favourable opportunities into Kaffraria. Then, one morning the news was brought in that a pack of wild dogs, issuing from the Kowie Bush on the west, had sallied out on a rush over the intervening belt of well-stocked cattle country into the Fish River Valley, and there were few farms on the route that had not suffered. At one place a heifer had been pulled down and eaten; at another, a cow had been attacked and so mauled that death from a rifle-ball was a happy release; and on my place the pack had stampeded a mob of young cattle, ran down and killed a steer, besides leaving their marks on many others.

In one night they had covered fifteen miles from one wooded fastness to the other, killing as they went, and when in the morning the angry farmers fingered their guns the brutes were resting secure in the distant woods. The wild dogs hunt in packs when after game, and according to a well arranged plan. Thus, one part of the pack will head the quarry in a certain direction where other members are lying in wait, but when on a wild rush across the veld they keep together, and on coming across cattle or sheep they bite or kill out of sheer l.u.s.t of blood, seldom stopping to eat. Their jaws are enormously powerful, and with a snap and a wrench they tear away mouthfuls of flesh--so that if a pack gets among a flock of sheep they do a vast deal of mischief, and though they cannot pull down an ox, they will cause the death of a cow by tearing at her udder and belly. Fortunately their raids into the comparatively open veld are not frequent, and they prefer to keep in the shelter of wide stretches of bush until game becoming scarce they s.h.i.+ft quarters, when they may sometimes be caught in an isolated kloof and shot or poisoned.

Uncle Abe had something to say when I met him next at the monthly meeting of our Farmers' a.s.sociation--an organisation of six paying members and fifteen members who never had enough cash to pay, but who regularly attended on the chance of getting a square meal from any one of the five whose turn it was to give up his largest room to the meeting. Uncle Abe did most of the orating, and it frequently happened indeed that the formal business would be forgotten, while Abe from his usual seat on the door-step held forth on the peculiar gifts of "animiles." His idea was that all branches of animal life acted under a stringent code of laws and regulations.

"Take these yer wild dogs," he said, pointing the stem of his well-chewed pipe at the President, who sat at the end of the dining-room table waiting patiently for a nervous young farmer to read his painfully prepared paper on the vexed question of "Inoculation as a Cure for Lung-sickness."

"Take these yer wild dogs. Haven't they got a leader? They have. Of course they have, and wha' jer think they've got a leader for if it isn't to follow him or her--for more often than not the leader's a she; and wha' jer think they foller him or her if it ain't because they've got rules and regulations which are be-known to that leader?"

"Don't they follow the leader because he happens to be the strongest in the pack?" asked the nervous member anxiously, bent on s.h.i.+rking his task.

"We ain't going to follow your lead this afternoon on that score," said Abe caustically. "No sir, they follow the leader not because he is the strongest, but for the reason that he knows the rules and regilations."

"Have you seen a printed copy, Abe?" asked one member shyly.

"No, sir. It's only human beings that ain't got sense enough to know what they are setting out to do unless they put everything in print. A human being wants to know everything, and he don't know nothing; but a animile he calkalates to know what's necessary for him, and when he learns his lesson he don't want any noospaper to tell him about it--you jes' put that in your pipe. Now take your case--"