AT THE BURNED STATION
“Well, Joe, how do you like it?”
“I don’t know, Blake. It’s a heap-sight different from camping out on
our Western plains.”
“I should say so!” exclaimed C. C. Piper. “If there’s one inch of me
that hasn’t been bitten by some of these ticks, I’d like someone to
point it out. I know I’ll never get back alive to----”
“Hold on there!” cried Blake, with a laugh, “I thought you’d given up
all that sort of thing, since coming to Africa.”
“So I have,” answered the hunter-actor. “I forgot myself for a moment.
At the same time, those ticks do bite; but I suppose it had better be
them than a hippo,” and he proceeded to apply some healing lotion to
the bites of the insects that make life in Africa a burden to man and
beast, not even the mighty lion, nor the thick-skinned rhinoceros,
escaping.
“I never thought the mosquitoes would be so bad,” came from the tent
where Mr. Duncan was sleeping--or, rather, trying to sleep. “There must
be a hole in my mosquito canopy,” he went on.
“Do as I once read of an Irishman doing,” suggested Sergeant Hotchkiss.
“How was that?” asked Mr. Piper.
“Why, the Irishman put up at a hotel in some part of Jersey, where the
mosquitoes were very bad,” went on the former Boer soldier. “He was
shown to his room, and found a mosquito netting over the bed. He didn’t
know exactly what it was for, but he managed to solve the problem to
his own satisfaction at least. In the morning the hotel clerk asked him
how he slept, also inquiring if the mosquitoes bothered him very much.
“The Irishman said they did, until he had an inspiration. He said he
tore a hole in the ‘fishnet’ over his bed.
“‘Sure and all the mosquitoes went in that,’ he said, ‘and I just laid
down on the floor, after closin’ up the hole, with them all inside, and
slept in peace and quietness.’”
“That’s pretty good,” remarked Mr. Duncan, “but I don’t believe African
mosquitoes are like that.”
It was their third day out, and they had traveled over a considerable
stretch of country. The porters were fresh, and had made good time.
Mr. Piper was lucky enough to shoot a big eland, and this furnished
meat, which the white travelers were almost as glad to partake of as
were the blacks.
The boys had tried several times to get moving pictures of some of the
herds of wildebeest or hartebeest, a species of antelope, and also the
numerous gazelles, the Thompson variety, known locally as “Tommy’s,”
and also the Grant. But they had been unsuccessful from various causes.
Sometimes, just as they got ready to begin grinding away at the film,
having placed the camera at some water hole, or stream where game came
to drink, the clicking would frighten the timid creatures away.
Or the deer would scent some animal that they dreaded--a lion or
leopard, and would gallop off before Joe or Blake could get the desired
films.
Then, if they waited for the more powerful animals to appear, something
might frighten them off, and so the opportunity would be lost.
“But we’ll get ’em yet,” said Joe. “I’d rather get some of the wilder
or bigger animals, if we could, instead of these deer-like creatures,
anyhow.”
“Oh, we’ll get ’em all in time,” declared his chum.
And so they had traveled on, the expedition making good time. During
the terrible heat of midday, almost on the equator as they were, they
rested in shade if they could find it, or under their tents. At night
they would seek out some spot near water, tether their animals, raise
the canvas shelters, and have supper, dining on the provisions they had
brought with them, or on what game Mr. Piper or the sergeant shot.
Occasionally the boys themselves, under the guidance of the former
soldier, would go out and try their luck at providing the larder with
something substantial. And often they were lucky, for the country
abounded in game.
Then, when the porters came back laden with meat, there would be
general rejoicing, Happy One leading the chant in honor of the white
men and boys.
And now they had come again to a night camp. Fires had been lighted
in several places, about which squatted the blacks, with their scanty
blankets. But they did not mind the ticks and mosquitoes, as long as
they were warm and well fed.
“A strange sight,” murmured C. C., as he looked from the tent where all
the whites slept, out on the surrounding camp fires. The flames played
on the strongly-marked features of the blacks, throwing them into bold
relief. Happy One, who had resumed his hyena skull headpiece on getting
rid of his burden, went from place to place, here starting a weird
song, there pausing to tell some story of the ancient days.
The smell of cooking was in the air, for the African porters never
seemed to tire of eating. Even as they sang they roasted strips of meat
on slender sticks at the blazes.
“It sure is strange,” agreed Blake, as he looked on the scene. “Getting
the films of the Indians was nothing to this.”
“But we haven’t got many films as yet,” said Joe.
“No, but we will,” said his chum. “We will soon be at Kargos, and
then----”
“Then we may find some trace of Sister Jessie,” said Joe, in a low
voice. “I only hope we do.”
They talked for some time longer, and then turned over and tried to go
to sleep. It was not easy work. Their surroundings were strange, and
they were not as comfortable as they might have been, though they had
brought all the conveniences they could with them.
Even at that, with the chattering of baboons in the distance, the
night-noises of the wild fowl and the birds, the occasional grunt of a
hippo or the louder noise of the rhino, like some locomotive whistling
and blowing off steam at the same time, there was enough disturbance to
keep even a bigger camp awake.
Then, when they did drop off into a doze, there came a sudden alarm.
From afar sounded a noise like thunder. It rumbled and roared, and the
boys sat up on their collapsible cots.
“What is it?” cried Joe.
“A storm,” answered his chum.
“Lions!” exclaimed Sergeant Hotchkiss, who had caught the words of the
frightened porters.
They all turned out with their guns, while the fires blazed brightly
from the wood thrown on by the natives. But the noise died off in the
distance, and the beasts that are called the “kings” of the jungle
sought some other spot to make their nightly kill.
“Oh, for a chance to take a picture of the lions!” sighed Joe, as he
again sought his bed.
“We’ll get it yet,” said Blake, as he, too, turned in.
The next day broke hot and dry. They had been subject to a number
of thunder storms, in which the vividness of the lightning and the
terrific explosions of heaven’s artillery they had never seen nor
heard equaled, but now there seemed to come a period of calm, and they
traveled onward amid intense heat.
It was hard work, but the porters, under the “jollying” of Happy One,
did not seem to mind it. C. C., too, seemed to retain his good spirits
and made no direful predictions.
But Mr. Duncan, no less than Joe and Blake, was anxious to get to the
place where, according to reports, his daughter had last been. They
questioned many native tribes, as they went along, and were told that
the mission station was still many miles farther along.
“And when we get there, what will we find?” asked Joe, and there was
anxiety in his tone.
“Maybe not as bad as we have heard,” said Blake, encouragingly.
And so they traveled on. Lucky it was that C. C. and Sergeant Hotchkiss
were along, for on them devolved the work of keeping the camp in meat.
The boys did their best, but they had not had the experience, nor the
practice in bringing down big game. But the former soldier and the
actor-hunter were sharp on the trail, and brought down many a lusty
buck of the antelope species, occasionally getting a giraffe, or some
smaller animal good for food. Everything was grist that came to the
mill of the Africans, though the whites were more fastidious. Though
even with the most unprepossessing animals there were some parts good
for food.
“Well, I wonder what we’ll strike to-day?” spoke Joe, on the second
day’s trek after their night when the mosquitoes and ticks had been so
troublesome.
“More moving pictures, I hope,” said his chum.
That day they had been lucky enough to film a herd of giraffes feeding
on the tops of some tall trees. The two lads had managed to creep up
close under cover, and, setting their cameras, had snapped the tall,
but in a way graceful, creatures as they ate. There was no desire to
shoot them, but some noise gave the alarm, and away they went over the
plain at an ungainly gallop, their tails twisting about in the queerest
fashion.
“We are getting near the village where my sister was,” went on Joe, in
a low voice. “Happy One, according to the sergeant, said that by noon
we would make it. I wonder what we’ll find there. If we can only pick
up some clue----”
“Of course we will,” put in C. C., cheerfully.
A little later there came a shout from the porters who were in the
lead. There appeared to be considerable excitement, and at first the
boys thought something had happened.
“An attack by some wild animal!” cried Joe.
“A lion, maybe,” added Blake. “Get the camera ready.”
“That isn’t an alarm,” said Sergeant Hotchkiss, quietly.
“What is it, then?” asked Mr. Duncan.
“They are singing a song of lament--of sorrow,” was the answer.
A chill struck to the hearts of the boys, as they pushed forward. What
would they see?
“It must be the station where--where Jessie was,” said Mr. Duncan,
brokenly. “If there are any of the mission people left they may be able
to----”
But he did not finish. Accompanied by the boys he made a turn in the
trail which brought him to the little clearing where the mission had
been. But the station was gone.
It had been destroyed, and nothing but a fire-blackened area marked
where it had stood. There were the ruins of the buildings, and of the
charred huts occupied by the natives from whom an attempt had been made
to lift the darkness of ignorance. All was gone! The little church was
burned--nothing but a pile of charred timbers. The raiders had done
their work well.
The song of the African porters seemed to become more and more
melancholy. They felt for their white employers, for the story of the
search for the daughter of Mr. Duncan was known to all.
“Nothing left!” exclaimed Mr. Duncan, and he placed his hand on Joe’s
shoulder. “Not a trace. Oh, my poor Jessie!”
There was silence for a moment, and then C. C. Piper, who had gone
forward, uttered a cry--a cry of joy, it seemed.
“What is it?” asked Blake, eagerly. “Have you a clue?”
“I think I have, and a good one, too!” replied the actor-hunter.