Part 64

The Colonel's horse was a faster walker than the others and slowly he forged ahead. Little by little the safari began to string out along the road until wide spaces grew between the ox-wagons, with the porters straggling after them a mile behind. A change had come over the valley since we had seen it last. The land was whiter beneath the blazing sunshine and the dust lay thicker in the road. Somehow it seemed deserted. The only movement was the shimmer of the heat waves.

The camera department had the slowest mounts, and as the march had become a plodding procession, in which the horses were allowed to choose their own paces, one by one the other members of the expedition passed us.

Loveless came from behind and rode with us for half a mile or so.

"I've been thinking this thing over," he finally said, "and my idea is that after the dogs get the lion stopped, one of us can go by him, rope him, and keep on going, and then the other fellow can catch him by the hind legs and we've got him. If you keep on going fast enough, I don't think he'll have a chance to spring at you."

In the pause that followed the delivery of this opinion on a matter that had been thrashed out a hundred times before, his horse gradually carried him farther ahead until he had gone beyond the range of talk.

Ulyate, the white hunter, was the next. Kearton had just finished filling his pipe and he silently reached out the bag of tobacco. But Ulyate shook his head.

"Throat's too dry," he said. "But I want to be sure I understand what I've got to do. I'm to stand by to protect the cameras and leave the Colonel and the two boys to look after themselves. If the lion charges them I'm not to fire--only if he comes at the cameras."

"That's right--only if he comes at the cameras."

"That's what I thought, but I wanted to make sure--It's a likely place, this Rugged Rocks," he continued over his shoulder. "We might easily find one to-morrow."

Means on his big bay borrowed a drink of water from Gobbet's canteen, and rode on after the others.

The march of the safari grew slower and slower. The road was flat, bending a little back and forth in long, sweeping curves, like a rope that was once taut and had been loosened. The native drivers no longer cried at the oxen, for the beasts knew by instinct that they were traveling to water and could be relied upon to do their best; and the men rode with their heads hung down, watching the shadows of the horses on the road and hoping to see them lengthen.

The Colonel, the two cowboys, and Ulyate reached the Rugged Rocks at least an hour ahead, and when the rest of us came straggling in we found them seated on the ground with their backs to the bole of a tree. None of them looked up as we halted there, dismounted, and turned the horses loose. Then Ulyate spoke.

"Water hole has dried," he said.

There was nothing to be done about it. If the water hole had dried, it had dried. That was all. And we had to push on to Kijabe. Lions or no lions, there was no appeal from that decree. So we sat down with the others and watched the progress of the far-off dust cloud that marked the approaching wagons. Then, when darkness came again, the safari resumed the march.

But the Colonel refused to abandon his former plan entirely without making at least one more attempt. Together with the two cowboys and Kearton, he remained behind to scout at dawn the district between the Rugged Rocks and the railway.

"We might be able to tell if it's worth while to come back here," he explained.

It was nearly noon of the following day before the scouting party rejoined the expedition on the platform of the Kijabe station. The party reported that near the base of Longernot, the northern volcano, a belt of lava rock rises perpendicularly from the plain. Close to the southern end of this belt they had flushed two lions, a male and a female, and had kept sight of them for fully an hour. It was the opinion of all in the party that the lions lived in the neighborhood, probably in the rocks.

"Very likely," said Ulyate; "no one has ever hunted that corner of the valley. There is no water there."

At first the Colonel was anxious to start back for them at once, hauling the water with us; but after a moment's reflection he was compelled to concede that it was time to call a halt. Means had strained his back again and could no longer sit straight in the saddle. An old thorn wound in Loveless's foot needed attention. Horses, dogs, and oxen were entirely fagged out. And besides, the camera department demanded time to develop the earlier pictures, already too long kept in the rolls.

Of course, as the Colonel maintained, the rains might come and the chance be lost. Also the lions might not live in the rocks, as we thought, and to-morrow they might be gone.

"Better grab the opportunity while we have it, he said.

"Look at the horses," said Means.

The Colonel walked deliberately along the platform to where the horses were tethered among the trees, and stood there watching them for quite a while.

"You're right, Means," he said, when he returned to us. "They'll need at least four or five days before we can put them at a lion--well, we've got to chance it."

The next five days were the longest in the history of the expedition. The Colonel, Means, and Ulyate remained at Kijabe with the outfit. The rest of us traveled down the line to Nairobi to procure more porters, more horse-feed, and more supplies; and every day we watched the weather closely and speculated on the probabilities of how long the lions would see fit to remain in the district. The time was so short that all other plans had been abandoned to take advantage of this one opportunity--the expedition was plunging, so to speak, on this final chance to succeed. But the weather held clear, and in the meanwhile the preparations for this last attempt were pushed with the utmost speed.

The hunters at Nairobi, together with the storekeepers and farmers of the vicinity, had heard of the capture of the rhino. On occasions some of them spoke of it to us. They explained that they had thought all along that we could undoubtedly rope a rhino.

"But you haven't got a lion yet, have you?" they said.

On April 5 the preparations were nearly completed and Loveless's foot was nearly well. So we started up the line to rejoin the outfit, leaving Gobbet at Nairobi to finish developing the films. We could not afford to spend more time in preparation. At Kijabe we found the horses thoroughly rested and Means's back much improved. He had refused to see a doctor, asserting that his back would just naturally get better of its own accord. He said he was ready to start.