The Idea of Airships Is all Right in Theory, but They Are Never
Going to Be a Reliable Success—Pa Drowns the Lions Out With
Gas—The Bad Boy and His Pa Capture a Couple of Lions—Pa Moves
Camp to Hunt Gorillas.
The idea of air ships is all right in theory, but they are never going
to be a reliable success. The trouble is you never know what they are
going to do next. They are like a mule about doing things that are not
on the mnu. If you want to go due South, the air ship may decide to go
North, and you may pull on all the levers, and turn the steering gear
every way, and she goes North as though there was no other place to go.
We waited for weeks to get a new supply of powder that makes the gas,
and finally it came. We got the bag full and Pa and the cowboy with the
lasso and two others, a German and a negro, got on the rigging, and
about fifty of us held on to the drag rope, and Pa turned the nose of
the machine south towards where he had located a mess of lions in a
rocky gorge, and he was going to ride over the opening to their den, and
let the cowboy lasso the old dog lion, and choke the wind out of him,
and drag him to camp by the neck, but the airship just insisted on going
North, and it took the whole crowd to hold her, and Pa was up there on
the bamboo frame talking profane, and giving orders.
She was up in the air about fifty feet, and Pa pointed out the place
where the lion’s den was to the South about a mile, and told us to drag
the air ship tail first across the veldt, to the other side of the den,
and cut her loose; so we dragged the ship away around South of the den,
taking us all the forenoon, and we could see the lions on the rocks
sunning themselves and probably talking over in lion language what they
would do to us if we got fresh, and every little while they would cough
like a case of pneumonia, and it made my hair raise, but Pa was so cool
he had to turn his collar up.
After a few hours we got the ship in the right place, about a quarter of
a mile south of the den, and Pa got the cowboy ready with his lasso, and
the German ready to yell murder in his language, and the negro ready to
throw overboard for the lions to eat, and Pa said, “Turn her loose,” and
we let go of the rope, and the ship sailed right straight for the den,
and we all climbed upon a big rock to watch the proceedings. It was the
most exciting moment of my life, except the time the fat woman in the
circus sat down in Pa’s lap, and crushed him beyond recognition and they
had to scrape him up with case knives.
There was Pa at the wheel, his eyes staring ahead at the lions, all of
the lion family having come out of the den to see the air ship, and the
dog lion, the head of the household waving his tail and making the air
fairly tremble with his roaring.
Pretty soon the airship was right over the den, the lasso was thrown
over the dog lion’s neck, and drawn tight, and he coughed and strangled
like a negro being lynched, and then he turned tail and ran down into
the den in the rocks, with all the other lions after him, dragging the
ship back into the entrance of the den, and closing the hole completely,
and we all rushed up and tied the rope to trees, so the gas bag was
right over the hole, tight as a drum, and Pa got down off the frame, and
as Mr. Hagenbach came up in a perspiration Pa said, “There’s your lions,
about a dozen of them captured down in that hole; help yourselves,” and
Pa sat down on the ground like a man who had conquered the world, and
was waiting for the applause. Mr. Hagenbach said that was all right, so
far as it had gone, but what he wanted was lions in cages, ready to ship
to Germany, and not down in a hole in the ground that might be as deep
as a copper mine, with no elevator to bring the lions to the surface.
“Well,” said Pa, as he lit a cigar, “there’s a perfectly good dog
Numidian lion, with a black mane, on the end of that lasso, and all you
got to do is to pull him up, just as you would a muscalonge on a line,
and when he comes to the surface after I have finished my cigar, I will
hog tie him and have him ready for shipment quicker’n a wink,” and Pa
yawned, as though capturing wild lions was as easy for him as catching
mice in a trap.
[Illustration: “There’s Your Lions, About a Dozen Captured Down in That
Hole; Help Yourselves,” Said Pa.]
So the crowd all got hold of the lasso and began to pull up, and of all
the snarling and howling you ever heard, that beat the band. The old
lion seemed to catch on to everything coming up, and all the other lions
roared until the rocks on which we stood fairly trembled like there was
an earthquake, but the old dog kept coming and I felt as though
something terrible was going to happen, and I began to get farther away.
Pa knocked the ashes off his cigar and asked the cowboy how much more
rope there was left, and was told about ten feet, so he told them to let
up a minute until the driver drove the cage up to a point on the rock
not far from where the lion would come out, and when the cage was ready
and the door open, so the lion could see a goat tied in the cage eating
hay, Pa said to the men to give a few more jerks, and, by Gosh, pretty
soon the lion’s head and neck came out of the hole, and he was the
maddest looking animal I ever saw, and the men looked scared.
The lion was bracing with his front feet, and using all kinds of
language, but Pa was the coolest man in the bunch. “Now, let him rest a
minute,” says Pa, “but hold the line taut,” and Pa took out a bag of
tobacco and a piece of paper and rolled a cigarette, and lit it, and we
all looked at Pa in admiration for his nerve.
After puffing his cigarette a little, and looking to see if the cage was
entirely right, he ordered the men who were not pulling on the rope to
line up in two lines from the hole to the cage, like the honorary pall
bearers at a funeral, and told them not to move until the lion was in
the cage, and when they were all in place, Pa said, “Now jerk his head
plumb off,” and the crowd pulled and the lion came out of the hole mad
and frothing at the mouth. Pa stepped one side and gave the lion a swift
kick in the ham, and the king of beasts put his tail between his legs
and started for the hearse cage, and Pa said, “Get in there, you measly
cur dog,” and Pa followed him, kicking him every jump, until the big
lion rushed into the cage and laid down, so completely conquered that he
bellowed pitifully when the goat butted him off of the hay, and Pa
closed the door and locked it and turned to Mr. Hagenbach and asked,
“How many of these vermin do you want?” and he said, “Now that we were
about it we had better get the whole bunch.” Pa said “all right, he was
there after lions, and he wanted to get the limit,” so they signalled
camp for some more cages, and Pa said we had better have lunch right
there on the rock beside the airship in the shade, while he prepared to
catch the rest of the lions.
[Illustration: “Get in There, You Measly Cur Dog,” Said Pa, Kicking the
Big Lion at Every Jump.]
Pa was attaching a long rubber hose to the gas bag, and as he got it
fastened and reeled about fifty feet of the hose down in the hole, Mr.
Hagenbach said, “Say, old man, I don’t want to kick on any of your new
inventions, but what are you going to do now?” and Pa said, as he turned
a faucet in the gas bag and let the gas into the hose, “Didn’t you ever
drown gophers out of a hole by pouring water in, until the gophers came
to the top strangling, and you put them in a shot bag and let them chew
your fingers? Well, I am going to drown out big gophers with gas, and in
about fifteen minutes after we have had lunch, you will see the dammest
procession of sneezing lions come up out of that hole that ever were in
captivity, and I want all of you brave ducks to hold the bags over the
hole, and when you get a lion in a bag tie the bag and roll the beast
over the rock, see?”
Well, they got the gunny sacks ready, and after we had our lunch and the
gas was filling the hole good and plenty, there was a lot of sneezing
and roaring down the hole, and Pa said the medicine was working all
right, and pretty soon Pa turned off the gas and unscrewed the hose, and
loosened the ropes on the air ship so she sailed off across the veldt
for a block or so, and then the trouble began.
First a big she lion came up with a mess of cubs, and they held the bag
all right, but she went right through it like a bullet through cheese,
and then there was an explosion away down in the bowels of the earth,
from the toe nails of some unmanicured lion striking fire on a flint
stone, and fire began to pour out of the hole, and about nine singed
lions of all sizes came up out of the hole scared to death, and the
smell of burned hair was awful.
The lions began to cuff the men and they stampeded down the rocks,
leaving Pa and two or three of us alone. Pa and I seized a couple of the
baby lions and started to run for camp, and the lions took after us and
chased us awhile, until Pa got out of wind, when we climbed trees with
the cubs, and the lions rolled in the grass to put out the fire, and
then they took to the jungle, and Pa said when Roosevelt got to Africa
and shot a few singed lions, he would think it was a new kind of beast.
We got back to camp with the two cubs, and called the roll to see who
was missing, and we found the natives had packed up and moved away,
claiming that the old man was a devil who had produced a burning
mountain, and the whole country would be devastated.
We sent all our animals to the coast to be shipped to Berlin and moved
our camp up to the jungle, about fifty miles, where there is a new tribe
of natives, and where it is said the country is inhabited with gorillas.
Pa says he is going to move a cage into the gorilla country, and call
the gorillas around him, learn their language, get their confidence, and
eventually reform them and bring them to realize that they are endowed
with certain inalienable rights, and teach them white man’s customs, and
Pa will do it or die trying, but I don’t like the idea, as it seems
dangerous to Pa. Say, those gorillas are bigger than John L. Sullivan,
and they hug like bears. Gee, but I want to see gorillas hanging by
their tails on trees, and Pa says I may go with him.
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