CHAPTER XVIII.. Transporting a Young Rhinoceros--Harry and Jack in

TRANSPORTING A YOUNG RHINOCEROS--HARRY AND JACK IN LOVE--ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE--JACK'S BOAT.

"Well," said Miss Boland, after a moment's pause, "I'll accept him, with many thanks, and use him as the basis of a menagerie. We'll keep him as long as we can around the kraal, and it is possible that we'll be able to take him to Walvisch Bay on our return. It will give him a chance to see something of the world; I judge from his youthful appearance that he has never traveled far away from home, and he may yet have an opportunity to visit the Tower of London."

"Or, more likely, the Zoological Garden," said Jack. "He will feel more at home there than in the Tower, as no wild animals have been kept there for many and many a year."

"Oh, I may get up a show of my own; and should I do so, it will be pleasant to remember its origin. This young rhinoceros will be an excellent beginning; but I think you're going to have a hard time to get him to our camp."

"Oh, not at all," said I; "we'll show you how it will be done."

While the conversation was going on I spied a troop of hartbeest about a mile away from us, toward the east. Accompanied by Mirogo and Kalil, I made a circuit in their direction, coming in under the cover of some bushes, and then stalking up to the herd to single out one of the largest. I got close up to him, and finished him with a single shot. Then I had Mirogo remove his skin, while I went slowly back to where the young rhinoceros was still surrounded by the group.

Meantime the Kafirs had arrived. Under my directions the after-rider tied the feet of the young rhino--tied them firmly, so that he could not move; then he laid him, with his back downward, in the skin of the hartbeest, and finally slung the skin, by means of holes cut along its edge, on a stout pole. Three Kafirs took each end of this pole on their shoulders; they were six in all, and thus had a weight of only fifty pounds each to carry, which is a mere trifle for a Kafir. Raising the pole to their shoulders, they went off at a swinging pace; and thus we demonstrated to our friends how a young rhinoceros could be transported. The fellow kept up a tremendous squealing all the time, and evidently did not like that mode of travel; yet it was not a question of his like or dislike, but of finding him a suitable home after his unfortunate bereavement.

We accompanied the ladies until we were in sight of their camp. Then, as the hour was getting late, we turned in the direction of our own wagons, and rode for them at a smart canter, reaching home just about dusk.

I had expected Jack and Harry would be enthusiastic and loquacious over the experiences of the day; on the contrary, they were decidedly moody and silent, and I came to the conclusion that both were in love and unwilling to admit it. What made the case a little awkward was that they were both in love with one woman. Had they respectively been in love with the two women they would undoubtedly have been more talkative; but when their devotion was fastened upon one and the same individual it gave a fine chance for that verdant-eyed monster known as Jealousy. They were jealous up to the eyes--jealous all over; and from being the best of friends, they seemed to have developed, all in a day, a very pronounced feeling of hatred. Their silence toward each other drove me into a condition of taciturnity, and as we sat down to supper we were as sociable as mourners at a funeral feast where each expects that he has been left out in the will of the deceased, and the rest have got it all.

After we had eaten awhile in such profound quiet, I suggested that the method of stalking with oxen might be followed with other game than giraffes.

Silence prevailed for half a minute or more, when Harry spoke, saying, "Do you think so?"

Jack uttered not a word.

"Yes," I replied, "I certainly think so; it might be a good way to get close up to buffaloes or rhinoceroces, and possibly to elephants."

"Yes," said Jack, suddenly, "and lions too!"

"No trouble about that," I answered; "you wouldn't have to get up to the lions; the lions would get up to you very quickly, and the ox would make off as fast as he could. I am afraid it would be a bad business, both for the ox and the hunter, so far as lions are concerned."

"That reminds me," I remarked, "of the last time before this when I came on a hunting-expedition up-country. We were trekking, one day, through an open sort of plain, where there were sufficient trees to afford cover up to within a hundred yards of the road. We had nine yoke of oxen hauling the wagon, and about twelve extra oxen driven along behind the wagon--the way, in fact, that most expeditions come up from the coast. I was on my best horse, and the other horses were ridden by the fore-looper, after-rider, manager, and others of our party. Everybody was in his place; and as we had not seen any large game, I was carrying my small rifle, ready to pick off any ordinary thing that came in our way.

"We were not very far from the settlements, and not a lion had been seen, nor the spoor of one. Suddenly a big lion came bounding out of the forest, making straight for the loose bunch of oxen at the rear of the wagon. He started from the cover of a bush which may have been fifty yards from the trail; I don't think it was more than that. You know in what a short time a lion can go fifty yards when he gives his whole mind to it; it didn't seem to me ten seconds from the time we saw the brute till he sprang on one of the oxen, killing him by a single stroke of his enormous paw, and setting his teeth in the neck of the unfortunate beast. It was all the work of a few seconds. The men ran in all directions except toward the lion; I brought my small rifle to bear, and gave the fellow a shot. It was enough to anger him, and nothing more. He gave a fierce growl, and seemed half inclined to come at me; and my only salvation was that he was very hungry and fell at once to devouring the ox."

Here I paused purposely, to compel one of my comrades to say something. Harry broke the silence by asking me what I did.

"I rode to the wagon just as quickly as I could," said I, "and got one of my large rifles; then I came out, and was accompanied, very reluctantly, by one of my men. I dismounted, gave my horse to the man, walked up to within twenty yards of the lion, who was busy satisfying his hunger, and gave him a shot through the heart."

"Well," said Jack, "you lost an ox and made a lion."

"That's time," I replied; "but the loss was much greater than the gain. A lion's skin doesn't equal the value of an ox, and I doubt if you would find any hunter who would be willing to make trades of that sort."

"No indeed," said Jack; "to lose one's traveling-equipment in an expedition like this is virtually to lose everything."

In this way I managed to break the ice and get the two men more amiable to each other. Perhaps I added a little fuel to the fire in both cases by praising the skill which Miss Boland had shown in her hunting-work that day. Then I changed to the subject of the young rhinoceros, and speculated as to what use she would be able to make of the beast. I remarked that I was afraid she would never be able to teach him drawing-room manners, as he did not seem to be adapted to a higher education. Harry said he could not see why the rhinoceros could not be educated up to the same point as the elephant, with the difference that he was not as large as the elephant, and consequently not capable of holding as much knowledge.

"Hold on, Harry!" said Jack; "that doesn't make any difference at all; it's a question of brain-capacity, and not of size. The dog is the equal of the elephant in intelligence, and you could make a hundred dogs out of one elephant--yes, a thousand of them--so far as size is concerned."

This led them into a discussion as to the respective intelligence of dogs and elephants. Harry took the side of the elephant, and Jack that of the dog, each claiming that the animal he favored was more intelligent than the other. I put in a word occasionally, the fellows forgot their differences and their loves, and altogether we had a very pleasant evening.

Our conversation would have been very enjoyable to a party of young folks, and I wish I could repeat the instances that were narrated of the display of unusual intelligence on the part of those two animals. Each of the champions told stories of performances which certainly bordered upon reason, and nearly every story was inexplicable on the ground of instinct only. Jack claimed that the intelligence of both beasts was distinctly human. Harry opposed him, and quoted the argument of some distinguished naturalist, who said that the line between human and animal intelligence was illustrated by means of fire. No animal, however intelligent, has yet been known to light a fire, or even to keep one going after it was lighted. On the other hand, the lowest of savages can produce fire, and also can keep it going.

Jack admitted the force of the point, and then conversation drifted to our schemes for the next day.

After discussing the whereabouts of the various kinds of game, we concluded that the best available place, with our present information, was the hippopotamus-ground. The hippos had not been disturbed very recently, and perhaps we could bag two or three without much trouble.

"Before I go on any hippopotamus-hunt," said Jack, "I'm going to have a boat! Without a boat you can't do much."

"As to that," replied Harry, "there isn't a boat that one of us would trust himself in in all this part of South Africa. Do you propose to send back to the settlements for a boat?"

"No, I don't propose anything of the kind," said Jack; "I'll make a boat, and I'll do it to-morrow morning, so that it will be ready for use by noon!"

We laughed at his suggestion, but Jack said quietly, "Just you wait and see."

Before going to bed that night, Jack got out four of our largest buffalo-hides, and put them to soak in a tub, so that they would be soft and pliable by morning. He was up bright and early, and before breakfast he went out to the nearest bush and cut some poles about ten feet long and an inch and a half in diameter. He took along two of our Kafirs, who brought the poles into camp; and by the time they did so, and Jack was back from his tour, breakfast was ready.

After breakfast he marked out on the ground a space which represented the size of his boat at the gunwales. Then he split the sticks he had cut, just as a "hoop-pole" is split for its uses. Then each hoop was sharpened at the ends, and the ends were stuck in the ground at equal distances marked along the curves indicating the gunwales of the boat. When the hoops or sticks were all in place they resembled the framework of a very low and oblong Eskimo hut. Harry suggested that Jack was making a hen-coop to keep the dogs in, to which Jack replied, as before, "Wait and see."

The next move was to take the now softened buffalo-hides and spread them over the framework, straightening the places where they met by means of a sharp knife. When the hides had been properly trimmed they were sewn together, and then stretched over the framework, which they fitted, as Harry said, "like paper on the wall." I should have remarked that the series of hoops which formed the framework were braced longitudinally by longer and stronger pieces of wood, one taking the place of the keel and two others forming the gunwales, all of them firmly tied in place by a strong cord. When the hide covering was stretched over the woodwork and securely fastened at the gunwales, the boat was complete. It was lifted from its inverted position and turned right side up, the points of the sticks were cut away, and odd pieces of the hide were bound around the edge to strengthen it.

"I told you to wait and see," said Jack, "and now you see it!"