Stories from Everybody's Magazine Part 25

"How large would you want them, sir?"

"Twice that size."

"May I ask for what purpose you require them, sir?"

"For lions," said the Colonel.

"Precisely, handcuffs for lions; yes, you need large ones. I am afraid I have none in stock just now, but I can have them made for you within a few days."

It was the same with almost everything the Colonel wanted to purchase; everything had to be made especially for him after his own description--handcuffs, collars and belts, chains, branding irons, a block and fall, muzzles of different sizes, corkscrew picket-pins for holding the turn of a rope, and a nondescript article shaped like a huge pair of tongs, for which I feel sure there is no name in any trade, but which looked to be a handy implement for clamping the jaws of a beast. To have these things made according to specifications took time and an endless amount of running about. Besides, there was the more ordinary part of the equipment to procure: English dogs, both foxhounds and terriers, horse-blankets, extra ropes, horseshoes, and so on.

When the last of the expedition sailed from Southampton, there were forty-eight pieces of baggage on the list.

This last contingent reached Nairobi at noon on March 3, and for the first time then all the members of the expedition met together. Loveless proved to be a man a little below the medium height; he held himself very erect, walked with quick, energetic steps, and wore a blond mustache. He made polite inquiries as to our voyage out, commented on the hot weather, and fully explained the condition of the horses and dogs. Means was taller. He carried his head slightly forward and wore his black hair brushed low down over his forehead. He stood slumped on one hip, so that one shoulder also was lower than the other.

"Please' to meet you," he said.

On our arrival at Nairobi the first matter to be decided was the district to be worked. The choice lay between the Sotik and the Kapeti Plains. According to the usual batch of contradictory stories in such cases, the game was said to be equally plentiful, or equally scarce, in both districts. Both had been shot over considerably of late, and, anyhow, no one could really tell us where the most game was to be found; because, as one informant explained, the game everywhere s.h.i.+fted so frequently and so fast.

But the Sotik and the country approaching it--the Kedong and Rift Valleys, and the Mau--were reported to be more or less free from ticks, and, as the health of the horses was of the gravest importance to us, we determined to work this district first.

The Colonel and his two cowboys, Loveless and Means, were ready to start at once. Eight out of the ten horses were in fine condition. With but one exception, the dogs had come through safely, though all were suffering somewhat from distemper. It was concluded, however, that they would recover just as rapidly in the open country as they would in Nairobi.

Kearton and Gobbet were ready. Kearton had built a dark room in Nairobi, because his earlier experience had taught him that the pictures could not be developed with any degree of satisfaction in the field. His four special porters to carry the cameras and tripods--porters he had trained on previous safaris--were only waiting for the word to move. Mr. Ray Ulyate, the white hunter to the expedition, had already gone to Kijabe to prepare his ox-wagons against our coming, and the Boma Trading Company had engaged a special train to leave Nairobi on the fifth.

On the morning of that day we held the customary procession of an outgoing safari down the main street of Nairobi to the waiting train. The Colonel rode first, with the a.s.sorted pack of dogs at his horse's heels. Then came the cowboys with the led horses; then the picture department; then the long single line of black porters, bringing up the rear. Above the loads on the porters'

heads two flags flashed their colors in the sunlight--the stars and stripes, and the house flag of the company, with the white buffalo skull against the red background, and underneath the motto, Sapiens qui Vigilat.

The night had already fallen black and cold when the special train crested the top of the divide and coasted down grade into Kijabe. The most imposing structure in the place is the railroad station, with its red wooden building propped up on piles, its tin guest-house alongside, and the neat gravel platform growing a clump of trees. The rest of Kijabe is composed of four other houses, the goods-shed, an open-faced Indian booth, the post-office, and the water-tank. Ulvate met us with a lantern, for the station lights are dim, and we detrained in the face of the high wind that always blows there from sunset to dawn, and picketed the horses among the trees of the station platform.

Because a large part of the revenue of the country is derived from the visiting hunters, a safari is accorded privileges out of the ordinary. So, as a matter of course, we took possession of the station and camped in the tin guest-house for the night.

The morning came clear and hot and still. The railroad at Kijabe runs along the face of the hills, so that the land drops down abruptly to the plains below, and you can look away for miles over the Kedong and Rift valleys, with the two sentinel extinct volcanoes rising black against the heat-blurred sky;

The floors of the valleys are laid with volcanic ash. But on first appearances the land looks much the same as the regulation veldt or certain parts of our own Western plains. It is only by the fineness of the dust that hangs about the horses' feet, and the peculiar quality of the thirst that dries in the throat, that you know this is no ordinary soil.

The sun was high in the heavens before we finally started from Kijabe and descended the rough road to the level ground, with the brakes on the ox-wagons squealing harshly and the horses treading silently in the dust.

We had planned to camp at Sewell's farm that night. It was only about four hours away, but a short trek the first day is always a good rule to follow. It gives every one a chance, so to speak, to shake down well into the saddle. We had gone but a short distance, however, when one thing became strikingly apparent: Gobbet did not know how to ride! He was mounted on a white African pony that we had found it necessary to add to our string.

The pony was stolid, lazy, and easy-gaited, but Gobbet's unfamiliar att.i.tude toward his mount was unmistakable.

Now it is a delicate matter in any country to broach the question of a man's horsemans.h.i.+p, but presently Gobbet introduced the subject of his own accord.

"Of course I can't ride a horse," he said. "Have never been on one before. When Mr. Kearton spoke to me about coming out here with him, he just asked me if I could ride, and I told him surely I could ride--but I didn't tell him I meant a bicycle."

After all, the matter was of no great importance. Gobbet was young and thin and active, with sharp black eyes, and the work that lay ahead of us would probably teach him to ride in short order--and it did.

We had little expectation of finding either a lion or a rhino on that first day's trip. We were traveling on a regular road, making a kind of initial march. The fringe of scrub at the beginning of the valley had been left behind some three or four miles when Ulyate suddenly reined in his horse and pointed to three black dots on the veldt about half a mile away.

The black dots proved to he only wart-hogs, but we wanted them, and, so long as there was little chance of our finding any of the more important species of game, we took the opportunity that offered. The Colonel and the two cowboys tightened their cinches and then rode out to the westward to round up the beasts.

"Drive 'em back to us," Kearton called after them, and Means waved his hand by way of answer.

Behind us, the line of porters was coming up along the road. They were straggling badly, broken up into little sections of threes and fours, so that the last of them were not yet in sight. Gobbet was sent back to hurry forward the four special porters with the cameras, and when these finally arrived upon the scene, their faces covered with dust and sweat, the hors.e.m.e.n had dwindled to dots only a little larger than the hogs themselves.

Kearton placed the cameras a few yards apart, and there we waited, watching the distant specks.

Two of the riders disappeared into a far patch of scrub. The third began swinging to the southward. His horse was galloping after something we could not see.

In the meantime the safari was coming up, and as each section arrived it was halted, and the porters put down their loads and sat on them. Some of them turned their backs upon the scene in total indifference as to what was coming next; others regarded the cameras with expressions of mild curiosity.

Little by little the third horseman had swung round so that he was headed due east, riding straight at us. Rapidly the speck grew larger, and the two other riders came out of the scrub and joined the chase.

Nearer and nearer they came, with the dust cloud swirling behind them. Gobbet began turning the handle of his camera, and the whir of the machine sounded loud in the stillness. One or two of the porters jumped to their feet and pointed. Kearton waited.

"I hope they won't come straight into the lens," he said. "If they do, it won't make a good picture. They ought to come at an angle. So," he explained, placing his hand obliquely to the line of focus. Then he bent over, laid his eye to the gun-sight of the machine, and likewise began turning.

The thunder of the chase could be heard now, and we could see that it was Loveless leading, on his black, with Means and the Colonel close behind and the wart-hog some forty yards ahead. The beast was running strong. His huge snout was thrust forward, and his upturned tusks gleamed in the sunlight. But gradually the black horse gained on him, and Loveless loosened the rope from his saddle and began swinging the long noose round and round his head.

On came the wart-hog, straight for Kearton's camera.

Kearton straightened up above the machine and waved his helmet frantically.

"Give over, give over!" he shouted.

"You're driving him right into the picture. It's no good. Give over!"

The chase never swerved an inch, and Kearton bent to his work again, cursing in well-selected periods.

The next moment the hog drove past him. At the same instant Loveless threw his rope and caught the beast by one hind leg. The black horse stopped, fore feet planted firmly, and the dust cloud swept across and hid the scene.

When the dust cleared away, the hog was lying across the road, blowing comfortably, with the rope leading from his hind leg to the horn of Loveless' saddle. Loveless laughed.

"There's the first one for you," he said. "And my, can't he run!"

Gobbet, however, was indignant. "It's no use," he complained. "To bring an object that way straight into the lens is against the first principles of cinematography. It's no use, I tell you."

Means sat half slumped in his saddle, with his reeking horse panting heavily.

"Well, well, well," he finally drawled. "And didn't Mr. Pig come a-bending across that prairie? He most certainly come a-bending."

The porters gathered around and looked long at the beast; some of them spoke a few words in low tones, and the others nodded their heads and smiled.

Sometimes a wart-hog will act nasty, and his lower tusks are sharp as razors; but when this one was released he walked out of the circle of grinning natives, slowly, quietly, and apparently thoroughly disgusted.

At Sewell's farm there is a pan of water made by a dam across an almost waterless brook, and alongside of this pan we pitched our camp. When the sun set, the high wind rose again, whirling up the dust in heavy clouds and sending the sparks from the fire scurrying over the ground. But the Kedong Valley wind is more or less a phenomenon of the country. You can count upon it absolutely for every one of its disagreeable qualities. I think the citizens of Africa are a little proud of it.

There was now a fair chance that on our way into the Rift Valley we should flush one or another of the larger animals.

Preparations for such a contingency were accordingly made before starting from Sewell's farm. Canteens and iron drums were filled with water, because the next camp would be a dry one. The cinematograph, cameras, and all the extra boxes were loaded with films the evening before, and the four special camera porters were given strict orders to keep well up with the advance of the safari. The lion-taming outfit--the tongs, muzzles, chains, and collars--was stowed on the first wagon, on top of the load, where it could be got at readily in case of need. The Colonel rode ahead, with the two cowboys close behind, all three ropers mounted on their best horses--the Colonel on "the paint,"

Loveless on his black, and Means on the big-boned bay. Every member of the party was especially cautioned to keep a sharp lookout on both sides of the road.