Part 58

It was a difficult throw--and a new one for a Western cowboy--to send the noose so far up into the air over the head perched high on the long, swaying neck.

But at the first attempt Loveless succeeded, and then reined in gently so as not to throw the beast, because a giraffe would fall heavily, and would very likely break his neck or a leg if tumbled over.

Finally he was brought to a standstill, his feet spread apart as before, and for a while the two stood facing each other--the cowboy and the towering giraffe, with the rope from the saddle horn leading up at a considerable angle to the shoulders of the prize. The rest of the hunt soon gathered about them. Although the light was rapidly failing, Kearton finished what was left of his roll of film. The whir of the camera ended with a peculiar flapping sound.

"That's all," said Kearton, and sank down on a near-by stone.

But Loveless and the giraffe continued to face each other undisturbed.

"Well?" said Loveless, presently.

"Well?" echoed the Colonel.

"Well, how are we going to take this rope off him? We've got none to spare, you know."

"Get a ladder," suggested Means.

"No, we won't need a ladder," said the Colonel seriously, "but we'll have to throw him, after all. We can do it gently, I guess, without hurting him."

Accordingly, Means roped the giraffe by one hind leg and pulled it out from under him, so that he sank easily to the ground and both the ropes were loosened and freed.

The sun had set and the short twilight was rapidly deepening. The ox-wagons and porters were several miles ahead. So we packed up the camera, coiled up the ropes, mounted, and rode away, and the giraffe raised himself on his haunches among the bushes and watched us go.

We camped at a water hole that night, and started on again the next morning in the darkness before the dawn, with a porter ahead carrying a lantern to show the way. With ox-wagons it is a three days' journey from that water hole to the Guas Nyiro River at the border of the Sotik. The country through which we passed continued to be the same as that of the Mau escarpment--a succession of low hills and shallow valleys covered with the small, twisted trees. And there was plenty of water on the way. But there was no game in the district.

We had been told before starting that we need not expect to see anything on the way, because antelope, zebra, and such like animals avoid the wooded section so as not to be caught unaware by lions, and, since the prey seek the safety of the open plains, the lions are compelled to follow.

In spite of this fact, and although the dense woods and broken ground generally forced the safari to keep to the road, the cowboys were always ready and the cameras, always loaded with film. But the land on either side remained silent and deserted.

And each day's journey was the same as the one before; the start in the gray of the morning, the long, hot ride, with the road gently rising and falling over the hills, and the sudden cool of the evening when the sun went down. At times the camera department would take moving pictures of the wagons and porters crossing a river, where an especially picturesque bit of scenery offered an attractive setting. Occasionally Means, as he rode along, would commence singing one of the songs of our Western plains, verse after verse, seemingly without end, recounting in detail some local historical event, such as an Indian attack on an army post, a shooting affair at a dance, or a train-robber's hanging. He would sing more to himself than to anybody else, and if this began to bore him at all, he would stop in the middle and leave the story untold.

Then sometimes, when we outspanned for an hour at noon, the four special camera porters would give imitations of Kearton and Gobbet taking pictures, of Loveless shoeing horses, or of Means in the act of roping. And in the evenings, when the day's march was done and the outpost fires had been lighted, the talk of the company would turn to our chances of finding luck in the Sotik country that lay ahead.

In the afternoon of March 16 we reached Webb's Farm, in the Guas Nyiro valley, which lies at the edge of the big plains. In this neighborhood there were three farms--Webb's, Curry's, and Agate's--and on the evening of our arrival some of their men paid a visit to the camp. They had heard of the expedition, and each in turn examined the horses, the dogs, the ropes, and the saddles, and then, like the hunters at Nairobi, asked the inevitable question:

"But how are you going to do it?"

"Oh, we'll do it somehow," the Colonel replied good-naturedly. And the visitors shook their heads a little and smiled and changed the subject.

But to attempt to rope a rhinoceros or a lion required fresh horses, and ever since we had left Nairobi, nearly a fortnight ago, we had worked our horses hard every day. Now that we had reached the land of the big game, the Colonel for the first time called a day of rest. So we loafed about camp from sunrise to sunset and by evening were heartily sick of it all.

Perhaps we had expected too much of this Sotik country; perhaps the expedition was running, temporarily, in a streak of bad luck; but the fact remains that when we resumed hunting on March 18, disappointment only followed disappointment.

As we had done in the Rift Valley, so here we adopted the method of sweeping the country with a widely extended line. The first day we rode far to the southward, to the Hot Springs and back, and found nothing, and an unreasoning depression settled upon the expedition. The next day we rode still farther, to the westward this time, and again found nothing, and so the depression deepened. Also on the afternoon of this day it rained heavily, and Curry agreed with Ulyate that this probably meant the beginning of the rainy season, which was already overdue.

That night at the supper table the Colonel spoke his mind. The rain was dripping through the canvas fly overhead, and the Colonel wore his broad-brimmed hat to help keep the water off his plate.

"There's no use hanging round here any longer," he said, "not a bit of use. We haven't seen anything, nor a sign of anything. When the rains begin in earnest, this ground will soften fast an' the horses will get bogged an' we'll have to quit. So from now on we've got to work fast. Now Ulyate says there's water about twelve miles from here to the north--called the Soda Swamp. We'll start for the Soda Swamp in the morning."

Again it was moving day. The morning dawned fine after the rain, and the air was clear, and the country looked greener and fresher than it had ever looked before. By the time the sun rose, the first wagon was packed, so the safari set out on the journey, leaving the second wagon to load and follow our tracks, for there was no road to the Soda Swamp.

At the last moment the Colonel decided that he and the cowboys might just as well make a circuit to the westward of the line of march on the off chance of finding game.

"We covered that district pretty thoroughly yesterday," he said. "But still, you never can tell."