The Boy and His Pa Leave France and Go to Germany, Where They Buy
an Airship—They Get the Airship Safely Landed—Pa and the Boy
With the Airship Start for South Africa—Pa Shows the Men What
Power He Has Over the Animal Kingdom.
I was awful glad to get out of France and into Germany, and when we had
got the airship safely landed at the Hagenbach stock farm and boxed and
baled ready to load on a boat for South Africa, and all hands had drank
a few schooners of beer, and felt brave enough to tackle any wild animal
that walks the earth, I listened to the big talk and the gestures,
though I couldn’t understand a word they said, except when they held up
their fingers for more beer.
I felt that we had got among Americans again, because all a German needs
to be an American is to be able to talk a little broken English. The
French are all right in their way, but they are too polite. If a
Frenchman wants to order you out of his place he is so polite about it
that you think he wants you to stay there always and be at home.
If a German wants you to get out he says “Rouse” in a hoarse voice, and
if you don’t rouse he gives you a swift kick in the pants and you
instinctively catch on to the fact that you are due some other place.
The Germans that are with us on the animal hunt in South Africa all
speak English, and while at the Hagenbach farm Pa convinced everybody
that he was the bravest animal man in the world, “cause he would go up
to any cage where the animals had been tamed and act as free with them
as though he did not know fear,” and he went around in his shirt sleeves
the way he used to in the circus, and would pat a lion on the head, and
if the animal growled Pa would scowl at him and make the lion believe Pa
was king of beasts.
Pa has found that putting on a pair of automobile goggles and getting
down on his hands and knees and crawling towards the animal in captivity
frightens the animal into a fit, but I guess when he tries that stunt on
wild animals on the veldt of Africa he will find it does not work so
well.
I expect to have to bring Pa back the way they transport canned sausage,
after a few wild lions and tigers and hippopotamuses have used him for a
cud to chew on.
Before we took the steamer for South Africa I had the first serious talk
with Pa that I have had since I joined him in Paris. I said, “Pa, don’t
you think this idea of chasing wild animals in Africa with an airship is
going to be a sort of a dangerous proposition?” and Pa began to look
brave, and he said, “Hennery, this is an age of progress, and we have to
get out of the rut, and catch up with the procession and lead it. The
old way of capturing wild animals by enticing them into baited traps and
letting them touch a spring and imprison themselves is about as
dangerous as catching mice in a wire trap with a piece of cheese for
bait.
“Of course, we shall take along all of the traps and things usually used
for that purpose, because roping animals from an airship is only an
experiment, and we want to be on the safe side, but if the airship
proves a success I will be considered the pioneer in airship wild animal
capturing, and all animal men will bow down to your Pa, see, and my
fortune will be made. We will get into the animal country and locate a
few lions and tigers, first, and sail over their lairs in the jungle,
and while I hold the steering apparatus our cowboys will sit on the
bamboo rails of the ship and throw the rope over their necks, and when
they find we have got them where the hair is short they will lie down
and bleat like a calf, and when we dismount and go up to them to tie
their legs they will be so tame they will eat out of your hand.
“I have got it all figured out in my mind and I don’t want you or
anybody else to butt in with any discouraging talk, for I won’t have
it.”
“But suppose the airship gets caught in a tree?” I said to Pa. “Well,
then, we will tie up and catch baboons,” said Pa. “Everything goes with
your Pa, Hennery.”
Well, it was like moving a circus to get the stuff loaded for South
Africa, as we had more than fifty cages to put animals in to bring home,
and tents and food enough for an arctic expedition, and over two hundred
men, and several tame lionesses and female tigers to use for decoys, and
some elephants for Judases to rope in the wild animals, and when we got
started it was more than a week before we struck the coast of Africa,
and all there was to do on the trip was to play poker and practice on
the tame animals.
We almost lost a tame lioness. Pa wanted to show the men what power he
had over the animal kingdom and he induced the manager to turn Carrie
Nation, the big lioness, loose on deck, while Pa put on his auto goggles
and scared her. Gee, but I thought I was an orphan for sure. The boys
had trained that lioness to be a retriever, like a water spaniel, and on
every trip some of the boys would jump overboard when there was no sea
on and let Carrie jump over the rail and rescue them, so when they let
her out she thought there was going to be a chance for her to get her
regular salt water bath, and that it was expected that she would do her
stunt at rescuing a human being.
When she was let out of her cage and the crowd was lined up all around
the rail, and she saw Pa in the middle of the deck, on all fours, with
the black goggles on, she looked around at the crowd of her friends as
much as to say, “What is the joke?” but she sidled up to Pa and lashed
her tail around and began to play with Pa as a kitten would play with a
ball of yarn.
She put her paw on Pa and rolled him over, and when Pa got right side up
and crawled towards her looking fierce, she side stepped and cuffed him
on the jaw and everybody laughed except Pa.
Then Pa thought he would make a grandstand play and drive her back in
her cage, and he started towards her real fast on his hands and knees,
and gave a “honk-honk” like an auto, and we thought she was scared, but
I guess she wasn’t frightened so you would notice it, for she jumped
sideways and got around behind Pa, and I said, “Sick him, Carrie,” and
by gosh she grabbed Pa by the slack of his pants and made a rush for the
railing, and before I could grab her by the tail she jumped right
overboard with Pa in her mouth, and landed kersplash in the deep blue
sea, with Pa yelling to the men to take her off.
[Illustration: Pa Gave a “Honk, Honk” Like an Auto, But the Lion Wasn’t
Frightened So You Would Notice.]
We all rushed to the rail, and I began to cry, but the boys told me not
to be scared, as Carrie would bring Pa to the yawl all right.
The men launched a life boat and the lioness was swimming around with Pa
in her teeth, as though she was a dog with a rag doll in its mouth.
Pa was swallowing salt water and saying something that sounded like “Now
I lay me,” and Carrie was trying to keep his head out of the water by
lifting hard on his pants, and finally the life boat got near them and
they grabbed Pa by the legs and pulled him in and he laid down in the
bottom of the boat, and the lioness climbed over the side and began to
shake herself, and then she licked the salt water off, and when the boat
came alongside she jumped up on the deck and rolled over and turned
somersaults, and then they pulled Pa on deck and when he got his sea
legs on he said to the manager of the expedition and the captain of the
boat, “Gentlemen, I have rescued your lion, and I claim salvage, and you
can give me credit for whatever she is worth as a show animal,” and then
Carrie went to her cage, and everybody patted Pa on the back and made
him think he had saved a thousand-dollar lion from drowning.
Pa asked me to accompany him to our stateroom, and when the door was
closed and he saw my tear-stained face, he said, “You think you are dam
smart, don’t you? I heard you say sick him to that old moth-eaten lion,
and now don’t you ever interfere with my plans again. I got that lion so
frightened by my fierce look, and the noise I made, that she jumped
overboard, and I went along to save her. Now, help me off with my
clothes and rub me down, and I will go out and chase a tiger round the
deck, and make it climb up into the rigging and beg to be taken down.
That is the kind of a man your Pa is,” and Pa began to shuck himself,
and I rubbed him down as if he was a race horse. I can see that when we
come to the wild animal fields Pa is going to astonish the natives.
We landed at a port in South Africa in the night, and before morning we
had all our stuff on a special train and about daylight we pulled out
for a place about three hundred miles from the coast, and the next day
we were in camp with the tents all up and the cages in place, and had
engaged two hundred negroes with no clothes on to help us.
When they saw the airship spread out ready to be filled with gas when we
got ready to use it, some of them deserted, but we got others to take
their places.
I suppose when we fill that gas bag with chemical gas and it begins to
flop around, there won’t be a negro left in Africa.
We were in wild animal country all right. The first night the lions in
the jungle kept us awake, and Carrie Nation answered every time the wild
lions bellowed, until Pa had to go and maul her with a bamboo club.
The next morning there were lion tracks all around camp, and Pa says the
trouble is going to be that the lions will hunt us instead of our having
to go after them.
A drove of zebras stampeded by our camp the first morning, a couple of
giraffes were looking us over from a hill top, and a rhinoceros went
through the camp and stole a smoked ham.
Pa is so scared he stays in his tent most of the time and shivers. He
says he has got chills and fever, but I can tell when a man’s heart
comes up in his mouth, and chokes him.
I told him this morning that if he showed the white feather now it was
all off with him, and the Hagenbach’s would leave him in Africa to be
adopted by a tribe. Pa said, “You watch me when we get to catching
animals. I will make any animal that crosses my path think he has run
into a live wire.”
Well, I hope Pa will not be a coward.
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