PANT SPRINGS THE TRAP
Pant’s conference with the girl at the creek landing on the appointed
night was short and to the point. The girl’s father was to station a
company of his men in a cluster of cocoanut palms at a certain point on
the river’s brink an hour after dark on the following night.
“Daego’s pit-pans may not come that night,” said Pant. “We have no means
of telling. But we will watch, one night, two, three if necessary.”
“Yes, a month,” said the girl.
“And your father’s men will be there?”
“Yes.”
“Depend upon it, the trap will be set.”
“Thank you, so much. And my father thanks you. The best and truest of our
people thank you.”
Once more the girl vanished into the night.
Next evening, just after nightfall, three strange dories might have been
seen stealing from the mouth of the creek. Behind them, wriggling and
twisting with the ripple and flow of the water, came a serpent-like
affair hundreds of feet in length. The dories came from the Carib sail
boats. They were strongly manned by Carib crews.
Leaving the creek, they moved slowly up the river. When they had reached
a point a mile above the mouth of the creek, they turned their prows
toward shore. Once there, they tied the long trailer to a Yamra tree.
This accomplished, they paddled rapidly back to the spot where the other
end of the trailer was bumping the shore. Having attached this end
solidly to a group of overhanging trees, they returned again to the other
end. After unfastening this end, aided by the current and their own
sturdy rowing, they brought this end to the opposite bank. There they
anchored it.
“The trap is set.” Pant said this with a sigh of relief. “The night is
ideal. No moon. Clouds drifting over the stars. It will be very dark. If
they come, their very fear of light will be their undoing.” At that he
ordered his men to row him back to the other shore. There for some time
he busied himself with the fastenings of that end of the “trap.”
“There!” he breathed. “A single stroke of the axe, and it is done.”
“They will come very late at night if they come at all,” he told his men.
“Time for another thing. Doesn’t really matter whether I’m here or not.
The trap will spring.”
He was eager to be away after the big cat whose tracks, freshly made the
night before, had been seen in the mud of a small stream that crossed the
trail to the river. At realization that he was so near, the Caribs had
been thrown into panic. Some of them had been for manning their crafts
and drifting down stream at once. But upon receiving Pant’s promise that
within forty-eight hours the skin of the killer should be drying against
the wall of the cook shack, they had gone back to work.
It was a rash promise, but Pant resolved that he would make good. So this
night, armed only with his rifle and a common flashlight, he made his way
over the river trail to a place of hiding he had prepared.
He had covered half the distance, when on pausing to listen, he caught
the faint sound of footsteps on the moss covered trail.
His heart skipped a beat. Someone was following! Who could it be? Was it
a curious Carib? Hardly. They were too much afraid of the killer. Was it
an enemy from across the river? Such a thing was possible.
Stepping noiselessly to one side, Pant waited. Straight on came the one
who followed.
“Sounds like two,” Pant said to himself.
“Sounds——” he hesitated a moment. “It don’t sound like—it sounds—yes, it
is! It’s old Rip himself!”
And so it was. Rip, the burro, once a bag of bones, now well fed on
bread-nut hay, sleek and fat, had chosen to follow his young master on
his hunt for a killer.
“Now, why did you follow?” Pant said with a chuckle. “What am I to do
with you? If I tie you up here the killer may get you. I can’t spare time
to take you back. I know what I’ll do; I’ll take you along. We’ll fight
it out together with the big cat.”
For this resolve Pant will always have cause to be grateful; and yet, in
a way, the affair was to end rather sadly.
With the burro standing patiently beside him, he had remained in hiding
for a full half hour when, without warning, there had appeared in the
trail not five yards before him the very creature he had come to seek.
There stood the killer!
So sudden was his appearance that Pant had little time to prepare for the
attack. He had only seized his rifle and had no time to aim and fire,
when, with a scream that was blood-curdling, the big cat launched himself
through the air.
Expecting nothing so much as to be torn to bits by the claws and fangs of
the beast, the boy dropped his rifle and threw himself back into the
bushes. As he did this, unconsciously his right hand reached for his
machete and drew it from its scabbard.
Surprise followed. The death dealing compact of the flying cat did not
come. For an instant Pant’s senses reeled. Then, like a flash, it came to
him. The tiger had launched himself against the burro. Feeling the
machete in his grasp, without reasoning as to the outcome, Pant sprang to
battle.
It was well that he did. A strange thing had occurred. As the tiger
sprang, the burro had reared upon his hind feet. In this way he had
struck the great cat squarely in the head with his sharp hoofs. The blow
had been a stunning one and as Pant entered the battle he found the
jaguar just returning to consciousness. This task he never quite
completed, for Pant’s machete, coming down with savage force, all but
severed his head from his body.
“That settles you,” he muttered. “I’ve kept my promise.”
Then, overcome by nervous exhaustion, he settled down upon the damp
earth.
As strength slowly returned he thought of his companion, the burro.
Creeping over to where he lay, he put a hand upon him. Then he lifted the
animal’s head, to allow it to drop limply back.
“Neck broken,” he sighed. “Poor old fellow! You could save my life, but
in that fleeting second you could not save your own.”
Rising, he gathered green leaves and covered the faithful creature’s
body. Then, seizing the jaguar by its hind legs, he prepared to drag it
to camp.
“Show ’em!” he muttered. “Guess this will satisfy ’em!”
Since the spot on the bank at which he had set his strange river trap was
not far away, he dragged his burden in that direction.
Arrived at the spot, he turned the carcass of the “killer” over to one of
his Caribs. Having told him to drag it into camp, he sat down beneath a
cocoanut tree that hung over the river.
“Wait here and see what happens,” he said.
There is no time so still as night on a tropical river. Shut off by dense
virgin forests from every breath of air, damp, oppressive tropical heat
seems to place a blanket of silence over all. The great river, with its
sweep of waters, is as silent as the stars in the heavens. The whole
universe appears to sleep.
Pant felt all this as he sat there listening and watching by the river.
This was an eventful night. Would they come? Would the trap serve the
purpose for which it was intended? So he questioned as the silence hung
over all.
Now that vast silence was broken by the bark of an alligator. Did that
mean that they were coming?
Of a sudden, as he waited, there rose out of the silence a strange sound.
Pant was all action at once.
With a look of mingled joy, determination and anxiety on his face, Pant
seized his axe and lifting it high, severed at one blow the rope which
held that end of the long trailer that now spanned the river. Instantly,
caught by the current, the whole long streak of brown swung toward
midstream. Even as it did so, between it and the other shore there
appeared a long black shadow.
“They come! It will work!” whispered Pant, dropping on his knees to
watch.