Part 8

Poor fellow, he little realized his danger! To the unutterable horror of those present the animal’s enormous jaws suddenly flew apart, disclosing a cavernous mouth and throat. By the time those jaws had closed again the unfortunate keeper had ceased to be numbered among the living!

Appeased, apparently, by this act of savage ferocity, Jack has since been as docile as he ever was. His diminutive, befogged brain had, no doubt, suddenly shown him, as in the mirage of fever, some dimly recognisable vision of the luxuriant African landscapes he was eternally severed from. He may--who knows?--have thought of other creatures like himself, lazily enjoying existence in sun-warmed, muddy streams, browsing at will on unspeakably luscious herbage. Then, perhaps, an illuminating flash of lightning rage showed him instantaneously the long tale of wrongs inflicted upon his dull-witted race by the white man. Because his ivory is finer-grained than that of the elephant and because it does not so easily become yellow, because his hide--cut into narrow strips--makes superexcellent sticks, not an instant’s respite from persecution is accorded to the poor “river horse.” Pitilessly is he harried and massacred, the hunter’s rifle vomiting forth a constant stream of bullets--“dum-dum,” explosive, or steel-pointed--to pierce the massive, narrow skull.

As a consequence of this ceaseless warfare the rivers are so rapidly becoming depopulated that the day cannot be far distant when, like the American buffalo, the African hippopotamus will be nothing but a memory. Possibly the domesticated “dark continent” of to-morrow will piously preserve in some park, national or international, a model herd of the only surviving representatives of this once prolific race. Learned men will then bring forward convincing arguments to prove the propriety of favouring the propagation of such useful animals; but the useful animals themselves, wearied out by the last years of their persecuted existence, will probably refuse to breed. Already the hippopotamus is scarce enough to make us realize some of the good that is in him. The knowledge has come too late; the “river horse,” it seems, is doomed to disappear. Under these circumstances, perhaps, the recital of my own recent experiences while hunting hippopotami may be found of interest.

To the African traveller the hippopotamus is a species of game particularly desirable, for its ivory and its hide are both valuable, while the not inconsiderable danger involved in its pursuit provides the delicious emotion without which every kind of hunting is tame and insipid. Moreover, the obligation under which the leader of the expedition lies to feed his servants and carriers adequately makes one of these enormous beasts, twelve feet long or so and disproportionately wide, a perfect godsend. Not only does the hippopotamus furnish a formidable amount of meat, but that meat has the inestimable merit of keeping fresh much longer than any other, principally owing to the fact that flies seem to have an insurmountable horror for it. I must admit that for a long time I thoroughly sympathized with the flies! Alive, the hippopotamus has a very peculiar odour, somewhat resembling musk, which discloses the presence of the animal from afar, when he happens to be to windward of one. In the flesh of the dead animal this odour--or the taste of it, rather--persists, and is much appreciated by the natives, though Europeans take a long time to get accustomed to it; some are never able to support it.

Once, when I was in the neighbourhood of the Chari River, my men informed me that a herd of hippopotami were in possession of a series of ponds not far from our camp. I immediately marched in their direction. As we approached the water we heard the trumpeting of the leader of the herd, and almost simultaneously caught sight of him. Erect on a small bank, his formidable mouth widely opened, he was uttering that characteristic neighing sound in which there are notes that remind one both of the lowing of a cow and the roar of a lion. On the surface of the ponds, moving quickly from place to place, were to be seen what appeared to be large balks of some kind of dark wood; these were the muzzles of the remaining members of the herd.

I succeeded in getting round the water unobserved to a spot where I was concealed from the animals by a small islet which occupied the middle of the pond. To this island I transported myself by means of a small and primitive canoe, which two of my men had brought on the chance of its being required.

By this time the old male had taken to the water again. The whole herd were now vaguely alarmed, for from my place of ambush I could obtain only fleeting glimpses every now and then of a muzzle momentarily showing itself on the surface of the water--just long enough for the animal to take breath--and then disappearing.

After waiting some time I grew impatient and began to salute each of these distant apparitions with a shot from my Express rifle. Nothing, however, is so deceptive as to shoot across water, especially when situated, as I then was, facing the sun; and I was not successful in lodging even one bullet in the targets I aimed at.

I then made up my mind to lie low for such time as might be necessary to reassure the animals. I had to wait some considerable time--certainly more than an hour; but finally my patience was rewarded. The old male, still swimming, was actually coming in my direction. His head, carried well clear of the water, presented a marvellous target at a distance of about twenty-five feet from me--a regular tyro’s shot. And yet something or other made my hand tremble, and as I pulled the trigger I realized that I had missed!

I also realized more than this. In order to make the effect of the ball the surer I had employed my largest gun, and I had given it a full elephant charge. The shock of the recoil was so tremendous that I was thrown on my back several paces away, with a feeling as if my shoulder had been put out of joint. When I got on my feet once more all the natives were shrieking with laughter, for this misadventure to their white master appeared to them highly diverting.

Meanwhile, in the pond a terrible scene was in progress. Maddened with rage and pain, the old hippopotamus was swimming furiously, first in one direction, then in another. Now he would mount on a sandbank, now plunge with a tremendous splash into the water, which was reddened with his blood. He was seeking an enemy on whom he might be avenged, and blindly pursued his fellows under the water. The ball had struck him in the chest, whereas the only immediately vital spot in the hippopotamus is situated just beneath the eye, the ball thence penetrating the brain. My bullet, though it had not killed him outright, must have caused terrible internal injuries, for very soon I saw him turn completely over several times, displaying successively above the surface of the water his head and his feet. Then, all at once, he sank and did not again reappear.

A dead hippopotamus invariably sinks to the bottom, and it is only after an interval which varies between two and eight hours that the body rises and floats on the surface. For this reason, if you kill a hippopotamus in a river the current of which is at all rapid, you must, in nine cases out of ten, give up all hope of ever recovering your quarry. The carcass may be carried a great distance under the water, reappearing at the surface miles away, where it furnishes a providential feast to the native inhabitants on the banks, who call down ironical blessings upon the infallible rifle of the white man.

In the present instance there was no necessity for me to trouble about the carcass, which by the following morning, if not that very evening, I knew I should find floating placidly on the surface, waiting to be hauled ashore. In any case it would have been sheer madness to try to recover it at that moment, as the pond was infested with crocodiles.

That day every member of the unfortunate herd--there were six in all--fell a prey to my rifle; the massacre occupied about two hours in all. When I returned on the morrow half-a-dozen enormous carcasses lay stretched out among the aquatic herbs, some floating on the surface of the water, others stranded on the banks.

It was not without difficulty that I persuaded my men to carry out the ropes necessary for hauling in the carcasses that were out of reach, the pond, as I have said, being full of crocodiles. One of their number, however, at last volunteered to do the job. While he was engaged in his somewhat perilous undertaking the rest of the natives set up a chorus of the most atrocious howling it is possible to imagine, meanwhile thrashing the surface of the water, creating by one means and another so discordant a concert that the saurians, terrified no doubt out of their wits, must have sought refuge in the most hidden depths, for we saw nothing of them.

To cut up a hippopotamus is no easy task. In some places the hide is almost two and a half inches thick, and before you have got through a hand’s-breadth your knife has completely lost its edge, and requires to be resharpened. The head and the feet are put on one side to be preserved as trophies of the chase, while the remainder of the flesh is cut into long, thin strips which, after they have been dried by hanging them on the tree-branches, will keep good for a very long time. The ivory of the teeth and tusks, which is of very fine quality, used to be employed almost exclusively in the manufacture of false teeth; nowadays it is turned to all the purposes of ordinary ivory.

As for the hide, cut into strips it is made into sticks, which are as good defensive weapons as one could wish to possess. Treated with oil they become as transparent as tortoiseshell, and look quite pretty. Out of hippopotamus-hide bullock-drivers likewise make thongs for their whips which are positively everlasting, and fetch, relatively speaking, quite a good price.

In this particular expedition the only trouble I had was that involved in shooting the animals. Things do not always go off so smoothly, however, and hunting hippopotamus may turn out to be a more dangerous sport than almost any other.

On one occasion, when we were descending the course of the Chari in canoes, we perceived a number of the great beasts in the river, playing some clumsy sort of game among themselves and throwing up in the air jets of water, somewhat similar to those ejected by whales through their blow-holes. We could distinctly hear the animals’ powerful breathing.

Carried away by the nearness of the game, I forgot entirely how dangerous the pursuit of the hippopotamus may become when the hunter is in a boat.

Meanwhile we were advancing steadily, and every time a huge frontal bone or a giant muzzle appeared above the level of the water I pulled trigger. There were frequently quite long intervals, for the hippopotamus is able to remain over three minutes under water without coming up for breath.

Presently, out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a female and her little one on the river bank; then I saw her take to the water. My attention, however, was riveted on a spot in the river where I had seen an old male plunge. Every instant I expected him to reappear.

Suddenly, ere I fully realized what was occurring, I found myself projected upwards in the air with incredible violence. Before I descended I had time to see a gigantic jaw open wide, and then close with a snap on the unfortunate canoe which followed mine. An instant later I was in the water, striking out madly for the bank, almost persuaded that I felt the sharp teeth of a crocodile nipping off a thigh or an arm. I was fortunate enough to reach the shore, however, without mishap. Then we called over the roll. At first I supposed nobody was missing, but we soon perceived that our number was one short. We never saw the poor fellow again. Doubtless he had been injured when the jaws of the hippopotamus closed over his canoe, and was thus unable to reach the bank. At that moment, probably, a crocodile was devouring his body at the bottom of the river.

By dint of a few questions I was able to piece together what had happened. The female, thinking to defend her young, had thrown herself upon the canoe behind mine, and almost simultaneously the old male had emerged from the water with irresistible violence beneath my own craft, pitching me upwards. It was a very narrow escape, all things considered, and I can assure you that, for the rest of that day at least, we left the poor “river horses” in peace.

The Tale the Doctor Told.

A CHRISTMAS STORY OF THE WESTERN PLAINS.

WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY STANLEY L. WOOD.

Concerning this narrative, Mr. Wood writes: “I was a boy at the time, living with my parents on the plains, the nearest point of civilization being Fort Hayes, now Hayes City, Kansas. The doctor had occasion to ride out to our place, and told us of his adventure, and the sequel, much as I have set it down.”

It was Christmas Eve.

“Hear that wind?” said Dr. McDonnell. “It sounds like a pack of wolves, the way it howls; and the snow means to keep on coming.”

“Yes, and stayin’,” answered the cow-puncher, nodding gravely at the stove.

“Not a nice night to go walking,” ventured the tenderfoot; “in fact, I think I’d rather be here. It’d take a bit to get me out--and Christmas Eve, too. As you say, doctor, the wind _does_ sound like wolves; and no doubt if one were out they’d find the wolves--or the wolves find them.”

“No doubt whatever, young feller,” remarked the puncher, dryly. “Wolves _are_ out this weather for grub; and when they’re out for grub they’re out on a business trip, dead sure.”

The doctor bit the end off a fresh cigar.

“Do you boys want a story?” said he.

“Go ahead, doc,” replied the cow-puncher, proffering a match. And the doctor, after lighting up, went ahead to the following effect.

* * * * *

Well, boys, it’s a long time ago now--a Christmas Eve, too--way back in the ’seventies, when things on the prairies were very different. It was usual in those days to get a brush with the Utes or the Cheyennes pretty regularly once or twice a month.

The twenty-third of December was a bright, sunny day, with not more than three or four inches of snow on the plains. Over the thin snow-crust galloped Jimmie Dink--“Darky Dink” we called him, because of his swarthy hair and skin.

“Doc,” said he, pulling his broncho up short before me, “Wolfie Jim’s about done. Can’t you go to him? He’s ’most busted up.”

Poor old Wolfie! I knew why.

Some time previously he had run in among his dogs, which were attacking a timber wolf they had turned up on the creek bank. He intended to knife it, as he had done many a time before, but the old fellow, maybe, was not so agile as formerly, and things had gone a bit wrong. Anyhow, he’d knifed the wolf all right, but the wolf bit his foot badly, and Wolfie doctored it in his own peculiar manner with unlimited bad whisky, taken both outside and in. Well, the foot didn’t heal, and Wolfie couldn’t understand it.

He was one of the old fur-cap-and-buckskin-shirt trappers who never consulted even a medicine-man, let alone a white doctor. I’d stopped at his shack once or twice and got a liking for the quaint old fellow, so I told Darky to get one of the boys to put a saddle on my old horse Pete while I got my “murder-bag,” as they called my medicine outfit, and was soon ready for Wolfie and his trouble.

Away loped Pete over the beautiful glistening prairie; I could have found my way to Wolfie’s with my eyes shut.

It occurred to me soon that I was foolish not to have brought a heavier overcoat, but I knew if I didn’t start on my return journey before sundown I could either stay with old Wolf or borrow something to make me warm; besides, although it was December, it was one of those prairie days that would almost fool a wise man into the belief that it was spring.

I shall never forget the shock I received as I pushed the door of the little hut open. I had started with my case full of all I thought I should want--even to vitriol, in case of a last resource. But Wolfie was beyond my skill. He lay stretched out on his blankets, dead, with his two dead hounds beside him. There was a half-empty bottle in his left hand and a big six-shooter in his right. There were three cartridges in the revolver and three empty shells. The old man and both hounds had each been killed with a bullet through the head.

I examined the injured foot and understood the whole thing.

Wolfie had doctored himself, but the wound had got worse and worse, and at last the old fellow, in awful, never-ending pain, had drunk himself half-dead and completed the work with his trigger finger.

Meanwhile the weather had been growing gradually colder, and the wind started to moan as I fastened the door from the outside, after quitting that abode of death. The sky, too, was rapidly darkening, and Pete shook his head up and down and stamped uneasily.

Mounting, I rode off; but I had not been going long when, away in the distance, I heard the dismal, long-drawn howl of a prairie wolf, then another, and another. Not till that moment did it flash upon me what an all-round fool I was.

I had brought no revolver with me. It had started to snow, evening was drawing in, and there were those gaunt brutes in the distance--yet I had no protection against either the weather or the wolves. I touched up old Pete, and we started to travel fast for home.

We had not gone more than a mile farther before a real, genuine blizzard sprang up. How it came down! Waves, absolute waves of snow, whirred, cut, and beat about my face, while the wind howled and shrieked dismally.

Then I did the worst, most foolish thing a man could have done. I tried to guide old Pete! I steered him, and, though Pete knew better, he obeyed; and so, between a good old horse and a fool of a young man, we made a fine mess of it. We got lost, tangled up, with the snow whirling about us in sheets. Every minute it got deeper and thicker, and at last poor old Pete staggered, tried vainly to right himself, fell over, and collapsed.

Try as I would I couldn’t get him up, and--well, I fear I lost my nerve, what with the blinding snow and the distant howl of those wretched wolves.

As the snow beat down upon me, piling up pitilessly over the now stiffening form of the poor old horse, I thought it time to move on. To stay where I was meant being frozen to death, to go on might mean the same; but there was just a chance, and I stumbled forward and took the chance.

Heaven only knows how long I ploughed and pushed through those awful snow-drifts with the falling flakes eddying about me in clouds; I lost all account of time. I went stumbling blindly forward until I seemed not to be myself, but just some machine without feeling or hope, mechanically pulling one foot before the other, and groping through the freezing dark.

I was just beginning to experience a drowsy, comfortable feeling, when--bump!--the little sense left in me was nearly knocked out as my head struck against something hard.

That deadly, comfortable feeling left me at once. I felt about in the darkness and touched boards. It was a cabin! With my half-frozen hands I hammered at the woodwork, and I shall never forget my feelings as a door opened and I was pulled in out of the storm, the door banging to behind me.

I couldn’t speak for a minute, and my eyes were blurred coming in from the darkness and snow, but when they got accustomed to what little light there was I didn’t feel I wanted to say much.

Before me was a giant. He must have stood a good six-foot-six, but all I could see of his face was his eyes. He was masked in what was called in those days a “storm-cap,” which completely hid the face of the wearer, showing only the eyes. A long, heavy overcoat, with collar upturned, reached to his ankles.

“Having arrived here, stranger,” he remarked, in an unpleasant, metallic sort of voice, with a half laugh, “and it now being near Christmas Eve, I’d be interested in knowing how you managed to bump up against this building.”

This was not the sort of greeting one would have expected under the circumstances, and the man’s language did not smack of the prairie, but I was too weak after my exertions and too thankful to be out of the storm to notice trifles, and so I told him as briefly as possible that I was lost, and should be grateful if he would give me shelter for the night.

“Shelter?” said he. “Shelter? Yes, why not? All the shelter a man could want. I wouldn’t turn a dog out such a night like this. Yes, stranger, you can sleep here to-night, nice and quiet. I’ve nothing to give you to eat, but there’s whisky here. Being nearly Christmas Eve, drink up, and then--_go_ up!”

As he spoke he poured whisky from a demi-john into two tin mugs and picked up a lantern. Then, for the first time, I saw there was a rough ladder, up which he went to a room above.

Now all shacks, dug-outs, and cabins I had seen hitherto were of only one storey. There was something uncanny about the man and the place, and tired and knocked up as I was I did _not_ drink the whisky; I just wetted my lips with it as my host’s feet clumped around above, and ere he descended I carefully poured the contents of the tin cup into the ramshackle stove.

“Now, up you go and sleep the sleep you’ve asked for,” said he, when he came down. “A merry Christmas to you!” With that he tossed off his whisky at a gulp.

Up I went through the rough opening; it was not a trap-door, for there was no flap to shut down. I found myself in a kind of loft, in which was a wooden apology for a bed, heaped over with some evil-smelling blankets. All this I saw by the light of a guttering candle stuck in the neck of a cracked bottle. Though I was very, very weary, all thoughts of going to sleep went out of my head. I distrusted that sinister-looking fellow below.

Pulling my flask from my pocket, I look a long drink, and the neat spirit gradually warmed me. Then I sat down in the semi-darkness to think.

Suddenly an inspiration came to me. Taking out my medicine-case I quickly charged a syringe with whisky. This frail thing, in case of attack, was my only weapon, with the exception of the cracked bottle holding the candle.

As I crouched there in the attic there came crowding into my memory stories of lonely travellers lost on these plains who had left not even a button to tell how or where they had gone. There had been talk during the last month of at least three men, settlers near the Fort, who had mysteriously vanished, leaving not the faintest clue to their whereabouts. At first their disappearance had been put down to raiding parties of Utes, but careful scouting by some of the best men disproved this theory.