OSCAR REACHES HIS HUNTING-GROUNDS.
"What are the habits of these hyenas?" asked Oscar after a few moments'
pause. "What do they do with themselves during the daytime? I should
like to know all about them, for I want to take a specimen or two back
with me."
"I certainly hope you will succeed in getting one; but if you do it will
be more by good luck than good management," replied his new friend. "I
have hunted in this country for sixteen years, and during that time I
have shot but very few of them. They do the most of their hunting in the
night. During the daytime they are hidden away among the rocks in
ravines so dark and gloomy that you would think twice before going into
one of them. I never heard of a hunter being attacked by them, but I
should not like to press one too closely. If I came upon him unawares I
shouldn't feel easy until he was dead or disabled."
"Couldn't I trap one of them?" asked Oscar.
"There's not one chance in a thousand," was the reply. "They are very
cunning."
The longer Oscar talked with his host, and the more he learned about
these fierce and wary animals, the more determined he became to secure
one of them by some means or other.
He succeeded, too, by what he then considered to be a stroke of good
fortune, although he afterward wondered if his prize did not cost him
more than it was worth.
"By the way," said Mr. Evans after he had told the young hunter all he
knew about hyenas and their habits, "what are you going to do now that
your cook has left you?"
"I don't know," answered Oscar. "I suppose I shall have to hire a
native."
"And go into the wilderness with no one to talk to?" exclaimed Mr.
Evans. "You mustn't do that. You would go crazy in less than a month. I
have hunted alone, and know something about it. You must have a
companion."
Oscar replied that he would be only too glad to take one with him if he
knew where the right sort of person could be found; and there the matter
ended until the next evening.
While he was busy cooking his supper a man approached and handed him a
note, which proved to be from the gentleman with whom he had taken
dinner the day before. It introduced the bearer, Robert McCann, as one
who, for a suitable consideration, would accompany him as cook,
companion, and after-rider.
I do not recommend him [so the note ran], for I know but little
about him. He has been into the interior on several trading
expeditions, and is well acquainted with the country for which you
are bound. He claims to be an old elephant hunter. He is the only
man that can be found in Leichtberg just at present, and if I were
in your place I would rather take him than go without anybody.
"Well," said Oscar after he had read the note, "if you can act as my
guide after I get beyond Zurnst, and can tell where the best
camping-grounds are, and find water for the cattle when they get
thirsty, I think you are the man I want, provided you know how to retain
your good-nature at all times and under all circumstances. I have known
men who were the best kind of fellows so long as they had a tight roof
over them and a warm fire in front of them, or a well-filled table at
their elbow, but who proved to be anything but agreeable companions when
they were caught out in a storm and had to go cold, wet, and hungry. Can
you handle a rifle?"
"I can't remember the day when I couldn't," replied the man in a tone
Oscar did not like.
"I want not only a good cook, but also an after-rider who is a dead
shot, and who can be depended on in any emergency," continued Oscar. "I
am not going into the wilderness on a pleasure excursion. I am going
there to hunt, and the sooner I get through with the work that has been
laid out for me to do the sooner I can go home. I want a man who is not
afraid of work, and who is not all the time trying to see how little he
can do to earn his food and wages."
Oscar then went on to describe the man's duties, telling him, in the
plainest language, what he should expect if he agreed to accompany him
into the wilderness; and at the end of half an hour a bargain had been
struck, and Robert McCann returned to the village, after promising to be
on hand bright and early the next morning, all ready to "set in."
"They told me he was a young fellow, but I didn't expect to find him a
boy," soliloquized McCann as he walked toward Leichtberg. "Of course he
can't boss me, and I shall take pains to let him see it. And he had the
impudence to ask if I could handle a gun, and to tell me that he wanted
an after-rider who could be depended on! I'll warrant I can kill game
where he can't find any; and as for standing up to the rack when trouble
comes---- Hold on a bit!" said Mr. McCann, rubbing his hands gleefully
together. "Wait until he gets his first sight of a mad buffalo! I'll
make him wish he had never seen or heard of Africa! I am to receive
twenty-five pounds for staying with him until he gets back to
Leichtberg. He wants me to be gone nearly a year, but if I can make him
come back in two or three months so much the better for me. I shall earn
my twenty-five pounds very easily. Aha! that's an idea that is worth
thinking of."
"I don't much like that fellow," said Oscar to himself as he looked
after McCann's retreating figure. "He is inclined to be insolent, and I
am afraid there is much more brag than work in him. But, after all, he
is better than nobody, and if I don't like him I can give him his
walking-papers as soon as we arrive at Zurnst."
But McCann proved, at the start, to be better than his employer thought
he would. He was an excellent cook, was possessed of considerable
intelligence, was rather fluent in speech, and Oscar found no little
pleasure in listening to his stories, of which he seemed to have an
inexhaustible supply.
Sometimes the young hunter thought McCann drew largely on his
imagination when telling of the wonderful exploits he had performed
among the elephants and lions of the "Great Thirst Land"; and, indeed,
he did.
He supposed he could say what he pleased and Oscar would believe it.
The wagon had hardly left Zurnst before McCann began to carry out his
plans for bringing Oscar's expedition to an end by telling some of the
most fearful yarns the boy had ever heard.
He said, among other things, that the lions which were to be found in
some of the plains that lay along Oscar's proposed route were so
numerous and savage that they would not wait to be attacked, but would
assume the offensive, even in the daytime, and drive hunters off their
grounds.
He affirmed that the water was totally unfit to drink, being so full of
animal life that an attempt to clear it by boiling only turned it into
porridge; that the fountains were many days' journey apart, and that he
had more than once seen thirsty oxen driven frantic by simply getting a
sniff of the water-butt in the rear of the wagon.
"Oh, it's a dreadful place, Mr. Preston!" he would often say. "You have
no idea of what is before you."
"That is just what folks told me when I went hunting in the
foot-hills," Oscar would reply.
"But this is different. You had plenty of water, and there were no lions
to kill your stock. I really don't know whether you can stand it or
not."
"Can you?"
"Me? Oh, yes; I've been there! You will find that there is no discount
on me."
"I am delighted to hear it. The next time we see Zurnst I shall be able
to say that I have been there, too."
This answer always made McCann uneasy. He was not half the hunter he
pretended to be, as we shall presently see, and he did not think that
Oscar was much of a hunter, either.
If the latter had had a few more years on his shoulders McCann never
would have agreed to accompany him into the wilderness.
He was afraid to go there; but when he found that his employer was
nothing but a boy he thought he could work upon his fears and make _him_
afraid to go there.
But they had not made more than two weeks' journey beyond Zurnst before
McCann began to see that he had been badly mistaken in the boy.
Oscar did not scare worth a cent. He held straight ahead, keeping his
course without once consulting his companion, finding every fountain on
the way with as much ease as though he had been acquainted with the
country all his life, and finally arrived at the camping-ground toward
which he had been directing his course ever since leaving Zurnst.
He and McCann, who always led the way on horseback, reached it about
half an hour ahead of the wagon.
After watering their horses they rode up out of the dry water-course in
which the fountain was located and looked about them.
No one but an African traveller ever gazed upon such a scene as that
which was presented to Oscar's view that evening. It was one that made
his heart thrill.
The plain, which stretched away before and on each side of him as far as
his eyes could reach, looked for all the world like some of the parks
he had seen in England. It was as level as a lawn, and he could hardly
bring himself to believe that the little groves that were scattered
about over it had not been planted there by human hands.
The plain was fairly covered with game, which had congregated there to
feed on the rich grass. It was big game, too, and Oscar could scarcely
repress a shout of exultation at the sight of it.
The moment the young hunter and his companion rode out of the
water-course a cloud of dust arose in the distance, and through it Oscar
obtained his first view of one of the most dreaded animals in Africa--a
buffalo; not the timid bison of our Western plains--which is not a
buffalo at all--but a beast that is so savage that it is always ready to
charge any living thing that comes in its way, so active and determined
that a single lion cannot whip it in a fair fight, and so powerful that
it has been known to overturn a heavily loaded Cape wagon with the
greatest ease.
Behind the buffaloes--there was a vast herd of them--came a drove of
quaggas, which were followed by a number of zebras, and elands,
wilde-beests, and harte-beests brought up the rear.
The cloud of dust raised by such a multitude of hoofs soon shut out
everything from view, but not until Oscar had caught a momentary glimpse
of something that increased his excitement.
"Did you see that ostrich?" he exclaimed, turning to his companion in
great glee. "It wouldn't take so very many of them to materially reduce
the expenses of this expedition, for Mr. Lawrence told me that every
bird carries around with him feathers worth between forty and fifty
pounds."
"So he does," answered McCann; "but I don't think you can even get a
specimen. You don't own a horse that can keep within sight of a
full-grown ostrich."
"Oh, I shouldn't think of trying to ride them down! Mark my words: If I
can find that fellow's nest I will take him and his mate to America with
me. I'll conceal myself in the nest while the owners are absent, and
shoot them when they come back."
"Well, you couldn't hire me to do a thing like that," said McCann with
emphasis.
"Why not? I know that a stranger cannot approach a tame ostrich with
impunity, for the bird will knock him down and strike him with his feet;
but a wild one would rather run than fight."
"I know that, too; but still you may find something in the nest that
would rather fight than run. Do you see that creature over there?"
As McCann spoke he directed his employer's attention to a bird,
considerably larger and heavier than any crane Oscar had ever seen,
which was stalking along the plain about a hundred yards away, stopping
now and then to examine some object on the ground.
When he drew himself up at his full height the long feathers on the back
of his head stuck out so that he looked as though he carried a quill-pen
behind each ear.
"I see him," said Oscar. "It's a secretary-bird."
"Well, whenever you see them look out for snakes. You might find one
curled up in that ostrich nest."