The pines of the island were full of pitch and a branch would burn
torch-like for a long time. I kept a bundle of such handy, the short
ends sharpened so's you could stick 'em round wherever the ground was
soft enough and have an effect of altar candles in a draughty church. If
there was occasion to leave the cave at night I'd carry one of the
torches and feel as safe as if it had been an elephant rifle.
We made a kind of a dooryard in front of the cave's mouth, with a
stockade that we borrowed from Robinson Crusoe, driving pointed stakes
close-serried and hoping they'd take root and sprout; but they didn't.
Between times I made finger-drawings in the sand of plans for tiger
traps and pitfalls. I couldn't dig pits, but I knew of two that might
have been made to my order, a volcano having taken the contract. They
were deep as wells, sheer-sided; anything that fell in would stay in. I
made a wattle-work of branches and palm fibre to serve as lids for these
nature-made tiger jars. The idea was to toss dead fish out to the middle
of the lids for bait; then for one of the big cats to smell the fish,
step out to get it, and fall through. Once in, it would be child's work
to stone him to death.
Another trap I made was more complicated and was a scheme to drop trees
heavy enough to break a camel's back or whatever touched the trigger
that kept them from falling. It was the devil's own job to make that
trap. First place, I couldn't cut a tree big enough and lift it to a
strategic position; so I had to fell trees in such a way that they'd be
caught half-way to the ground by other trees. Then I'd have to clear
away branches and roots so that when the trees did fall the rest of the
way it would be clean, plumb, and sudden. It was a wonderful trap when
it was finished and it was the most dangerous work of art I ever saw. If
you touched any of a dozen triggers you stood to have a whole grove of
trees come banging down on top of you--same as if you went for a walk in
the woods and a tornado came along and blew the woods down. If the big
cats had known how frightfully dangerous that trap was they'd have
jumped overboard and left the island by swimming. I made two other traps
something like it--the best contractor in New York wouldn't have
undertaken to build one just like it at any price--and then it came
around to be the seventh day, so to speak; and, like the six-day bicycle
rider, I rested.
"Days," is only a fashion of speaking. I was months getting my five
death-traps into working order. I couldn't work steadily because there
was heaps of cavework to do besides, fish to be caught, wood to be cut
for the fire, and all; and then, dozens of times, I'd suddenly get
scared about Ivy and go running back to the cave to see if she was all
right. I might have known better; she was always all right and much
better plucked than I was.
Well, sir, my traps wouldn't work. The fish rotted on the wattle-lids of
the pitfalls, but the beasts wouldn't try for 'em. They were getting
ravenous, too--ready to attack big Bahut even; but they wouldn't step
out on those wattles and they wouldn't step under my balanced trees.
They'd beat about the neighborhood of the danger and I've found many a
padmark within six inches of the edge of things. I even baited with a
live kid. It belonged to the Thibet goats and I had a hard time catching
it; and after it had bleated all night and done its baby best to be
tiger food I turned it loose and it ran off with its mammy. She, poor
soul, had gone right into the trap to be with her baby and, owing to the
direct intervention of Providence, hadn't sprung the thing.
The next fancy bait I tried was a chetah--dead. I found him just after
his accident, not far from the cave. He was still warm; and he was
flat--very flat, like a rug made of chetah skin. He had some shreds of
elephant-hide tangled in his claws. It looked to me as if he'd gotten
desperate with hunger and had pounced on big Bahut--pshaw! the story was
in plain print: "Ouch!" says big Bahut. "A flea has bitten me. Here's
where I play dead," and--rolls over. Result: one neat and very flat rug
made out of chetah.
I showed the rug to Ivy and then carried it off to the woods and spread
it in my first and fanciest trap. Then I allowed I'd have a look at the
pitfalls, which I hadn't visited for a couple of days--and I was a fool
to do it. I'd told Ivy where I was going to spread the chetah and that
after that I'd come straight home. Well, the day seemed young and I
thought if I hurried I could go home the roundabout way by the pitfalls
in such good time that Ivy wouldn't know the difference. Well, sir, I
came to the first pitfall--and, lo and behold! something had been and
taken the bait and got away with it without so much as putting a foot
through the wattling. I'd woven it too strong. So I thought I'd just
weaken it up a little--it wouldn't take five minutes. I tried it with my
foot--very gingerly. Yes, it was too strong--much too strong. I put more
weight into that foot--and bang, smash, crash--bump! There I was at the
bottom of the pit, with half the wattling on top of me.
The depth of that hole was full twenty-five feet; the sides were as
smooth as bottle-glass; dusk was turning into dark. But these things
weren't the worst of it. I'd told Ivy that I'd do one thing--and I'd
gone and done another. I'd lied to her and I'd put her in for a time of
anxiety, and then fright, that might kill her.