Part 56

Lassoing Wild Animals In Africa {pages 526-538}

By GUY H. SCULL

Field Manager of the Buffalo Jones African Expedition

SOMEHOW everything seemed to happen on moving day with the Buffalo Jones Expedition in East Africa. Exactly why this should have been it is impossible to tell. Perhaps the reason may be found in the fact that a considerable part of our time was occupied in moving. No doubt the circumstance could be traced to some such perfectly reasonable cause. But we chose to look upon it otherwise.

When an outfit like ours has been working for a while in the open country--especially when the undertaking has no precedent and the outcome is decidedly uncertain--the little happenings of each day gradually grow to have a peculiar significance of their own, and finally a brand-new set of superstitions is formed and half jokingly believed in by every one concerned. In this way an expedition comes to be regarded as lucky or unlucky, or lucky on certain days, or at certain hours of the day, or at certain periods of the moon. The wide reaches of the African veldt have something to do with it, perhaps.

These superstitions are temporary, local, and often purely personal affairs. Means, being a cowboy, believed that when he rode his big-boned bay the drive would be successful. The native dog-boy insisted that when the long-eared bloodhound and the little white terrier were coupled together on the march, the rest of the pack would come through without mishap. Loveless swore by a particular piece of rope, and Mac--which is short for Mohammed--discovered propitious omens on every conceivable occasion.

It was on the first day's march into the Kedong Valley that we had roped the wart-hog. On the journey from Sewell's Farm to Rugged Rocks we had rounded up and photographed the eland. Again, it was on the trek of March 8 to the Wangai River that we had caught our only glimpses of rhinoceros and lion--faint chances of making a capture, but still chances, and better than no signs at all.

And thus, merely because it had turned out so in the past every member of the expedition had come to entertain a semi-serious belief that something momentous was bound to happen on moving day.

A general feeling of expectancy pervaded the entire safari when we broke camp at the Wangai River at dawn of a hazy morning. The sky was clear of clouds, but behind the hills of the Mau escarpment a veldt fire had been burning for several days, so that a veil of smoke was seen hanging in the air as the dawn broadened into day. The smell of the burning veldt and the nearness of the fire lent an oppressive warmth to the still morning.

"You two boys had better carry your heavy ropes," the Colonel said at starting. "We might meet something."

We had finished with the Kedong and Rift valleys. We had hunted every corner of the district within striking distance of the water. And we had had success of a kind. Cheetah, eland, hartebeest, and serval-cat we had roped and tied and photographed. But the really big game had so far escaped us. For this reason we had decided to take the road over the Mau, where the smoke haze hung heavy, and so on into the Sotik country, where both lion and rhino were said to abound.

For the first ten miles of the march our way led across untraveled country, toward the two deep ruts in the veldt that were known as the wagon road. We had an extra ox-wagon with us now, in charge of Mr. Curry, an Africander, who lived with his partner on a farm on the border of the Sotik, and who on his return journey home with his wagon had agreed to help us carry supplies. Curry was slight and round-shouldered, with light yellow hair. His face was burned a bright red, excepting his nose, which was white where the skin was peeling. He had a peculiar, slow, drawling way of talking--when he talked at all, which was seldom. Being an inhabitant of the district into which we were going, he was naturally subjected at first to a number of questions in regard to the big game there.

"Plenty of rhino in your part of the world, I suppose?"

"Y--as," drawled Curry.

"And lion, too, I imagine?"

"Y--as."

"Ought to get some giraffe on the way, hadn't we?"

"Y--as."

"Rhino pretty scarce just now, though, aren't they?"

"Y--as," Curry answered placidly.

Thus it soon became apparent that Curry's chief ambition was to agree pleasantly with whatever anybody said, which tended to discredit any information he had to impart. So, as a matter of course, the questions ceased, and when no more were asked him Curry's conversation ceased also.

It was rough going for the ox-wagons those first ten miles, and they made slow time of it along the base of the hills. According to our custom on the march, the Colonel and the two cowboys, the picture department (composed of Kearton and Gobbet), and Ulyate (the white hunter) and myself rode in a widely extended line in front of the safari, sweeping the country for game. It was hot at the base of the hills--so hot that when your bridle hand dropped inadvertently to the pommel of the saddle, the brass mounting there seemed to burn you. Not a breath of air was stirring, and the sun shone down blazing through the wisps of smoke haze, and the heat waves rose from the dead, parched veldt so that the distant southern volcano looked all quivering.

Then from out the blurred vista in front little by little a clump of comparatively large trees began to take definite shape. Another half mile farther, and we saw that something was moving among the trees as high up as the topmost branches.

"Giraffe," said Ulyate, and no sooner had he spoken the word than the great, towering animals wheeled and fled from their shelter with that long-legged gallop of theirs which looks so easy and slow, but which carries them over the ground as fast as a speedy horse can run.

The Colonel and the two cowboys set off at a hand gallop in a vain attempt to round them up and drive them back to the cameras. The race was a hopeless one for the horsemen from the start. But, according to the general method of operations adopted by the Colonel from the very beginning, no chance of a capture, however slim it might appear, was to remain untried so long as men and horses could endure.

The two ruts of the wagon road led close by the grove of trees, and when the rest of us reached this spot and dismounted to await results, the three leading horsemen had disappeared long ago into the scrub-grown country to the south.

As noon approached, the heat became more and more oppressive. The cameras had been screwed to the tripods and covered with our coats to protect them from the sun. The horses grazed near by. Mac was sent up one of the trees to warn us of the approach of anything like a giraffe, and the rest of us sat on the ground round the bole in the small circle of thin shade and lazily watched the black ants always crawling and climbing and zigzagging back and forth over the network of fallen twigs and leaves. It was too hot to talk--it was too hot to sleep or think. And by and by the ox-wagons came up, and the oxen brought the flies. For a time then the only sounds were the slow crunching of the feeding horses and an occasional inarticulate snarl from some one or other who foolishly tried to brush the flies away from his face.

Eventually, after a long time had passed, Means rode into the grove of trees, un-heralded by Mac and alone. The bay horse had fallen badly, wrenching his rider's back where once he had been hurt before. Means took his saddle off, threw it on the ground, and sat on it.