No one had doubted Jess's courage, even when we saw her come back alone:
we knew there was something wrong, but in spite of every care and effort
we could not find out what it was, and poor old Jess went through the
night in suffering, making no sound, but moving from place to place
weary and restless, giving long tired quivering sighs, and pawing at her
mouth from time to time. In the morning light we again looked her all
over carefully, and especially opened her mouth and examined that and
her nostrils, but could find nothing to show what was wrong.
The puzzle was solved by accident: Ted was sitting on the ground when
she came up to him, looking wistfully into his face again with one of
the mute appeals for help.
"What is it, Jess, old girl?" he said, and reaching out, he caught her
head in both hands and drew her towards him; but with a sharp
exclamation he instantly let go again, pricked by something, and a drop
of blood oozed from one finger-tip. Under Jess's right ear there was a
hard sharp point just showing through the skin: we all felt it, and when
the skin was forced back we saw it was the tip of a porcupine quill.
There was no pulling it out or moving it, however, nor could we for a
long time find where it had entered. At last Ted noticed what looked
like a tiny narrow strip of bark adhering to the outside of her lower
lip, and this turned out to be the broken end of the quill, snapped off
close to the flesh; not even the end of the quill was visible--only the
little strip that had peeled off in the breaking.
Poor old Jess! We had no very grand appliances for surgery, and had to
slit her lip down with an ordinary skinning knife. Ted held her between
his knees and gripped her head with both hands, while one of us pulled
with steel pliers on the broken quill until it came out. The quill had
pierced her lower lip, entered the gums beside the front teeth, run all
along the jaw and through the flesh behind, coming out just below the
ear. It was over seven inches long. She struggled a little under the
rough treatment, and there was a protesting whimper when we tugged; but
she did not let out one cry under all the pain.
We knew then that Jess had done her share in the fight, and guessed that
it was she who in her reckless charge had rolled the porcupine over and
given Jock his chance.
The doctoring of Jess had delayed us considerably, and while we were
still busy at it the old chief came up to say that his scouts had
returned and reported that there was no tiger to be seen, but that they
thought the trap had been sprung. They had not liked to go close up,
preferring to observe the spot from a tree some way off.
The first question was what to do with Jess. We had no collar or chain,
of course, and nothing would induce her to stay behind once Ted started;
she would have bitten through ropes and reims in a few minutes, and no
kaffir would have faced the job of watching over and checking her.
Finally we put her into one of the reed and mud huts, closing the
entrance with some raw hides weighted with heavy stones; and off we
went.
We found the trap sprung and the bait untouched. The spoor was a
tiger's, right enough, and we saw where it had circled suspiciously all
round before finally entering the little fenced approach which we had
built to shepherd it on to the trap. There each footprint was clear,
and it appeared that instead of cautiously creeping right up to the bait
and stepping on the setting-plate, it had made a pounce at the bait from
about ten feet away, releasing the trap by knocking the spring or by
touching the plate with the barrel of its body. The tiger had evidently
been nipped, but the body was too big for the teeth to close on, and no
doubt the spring it gave on feeling the grip underneath set it free with
nothing worse than a bad scraping and a tremendous fright. There was
plenty of hair and some skin on the teeth of the trap, but very little
blood there, and none at all to be found round about.
That was almost the worst result we could have had: the tiger was not
crippled, nor was it wounded enough to enable us to track it, but must
have been so thoroughly alarmed that it would certainly be extremely
nervous and suspicious of everything now, and would probably avoid the
neighbourhood for some time to come.
The trap was clearly of no further use, but after coming so far for the
tiger we were not disposed to give up the hunt without another effort.
The natives told us it was quite useless to follow it up as it was a
real `schelm,' and by that time would be miles away in some inaccessible
krans. We determined however to go on, and if we failed to get a trace
of the tiger, to put in the day hunting bushbuck or wild pig, both of
which were fairly plentiful.
We had not gone more than a few hundred yards when an exclamation from
one of the boys made us look round, and we saw Jess on the opposite
slope coming along full speed after us with her nose to the trail. She
had scratched and bitten her way through the reed and mud wall of the
hut, scared the wits out of a couple of boys who had tried to head her
off, and raced away after us with a pack of kaffir mongrels yelping
unnoticed at her heels. She really did not seem much the worse for her
wounds, and was--for her--quite demonstrative in her delight at finding
us again.
In any case there was nothing to be done but to let her come, and we
went on once more beating up towards the lair in the black krans with
the two dogs in the lead.
The guides led us down into the bed of one of the mountain streams, and
following this up we were soon in the woods where the big trees meeting
overhead made it dark and cool. It was difficult in that light to see
anything clearly at first, and the considerable undergrowth of shrub and
creepers and the boulders shed from the Berg added to the difficulty and
made progress slow. We moved along as much as possible abreast, five or
six yards apart, but were often driven by obstacles into the bed of the
stream for short distances in order to make headway at all, and although
there did not seem to be much chance of finding the tiger at home, we
crept along cautiously and noiselessly, talking--when we had to--only in
whispers.
We were bunched together, preparing to crawl along a rock overhanging a
little pool, when the boy in front made a sign and pointed with his
assegai to the dogs. They had crossed the stream and were walking--very
slowly and abreast--near the water's edge. The rawest of beginners
would have needed no explanation. The two stood for a few seconds
sniffing at a particular spot and then both together looked steadily
upstream: there was another pause and they moved very slowly and
carefully forward a yard or so and sniffed again with their noses almost
touching. As they did this the hair on their backs and shoulders began
to rise until, as they reached the head of the pool, they were bristling
like hedgehogs and giving little purring growls.
The guide went over to them while we waited, afraid to move lest the
noise of our boots on the stones should betray us. After looking round
for a bit he pointed to a spot on the bank where he had found the fresh
spoor of the tiger, and picking up something there to show to us he came
back to our side. It was a little fragment of whitish skin with white
hairs on it. There was no doubt about it then: we were on the fresh
spoor of the tiger where it had stopped to drink at the pool and
probably to lick the scratches made by the trap; and leaving the bed of
the stream it had gone through the thick undergrowth up towards the
krans.
We were not more than a hundred yards from the krans then, and the track
taken by the tiger was not at all an inviting one. It was at first
merely a narrow tunnel in the undergrowth up the steep hillside, through
which we crept in single file with the two dogs a few yards in front;
they moved on in the same silent deliberate way, so intent and strung up
that they started slightly and instantly looked up in front at the least
sound. As the ascent became steeper and more rocky, the undergrowth
thinned and we were able to spread out into line once more, threading
our way through several roughly-parallel game tracks or natural openings
and stooping low to watch the dogs and take our cue from them.
We were about fifteen yards from the precipitous face of the krans, and
had just worked round a huge boulder into a space fairly free of bush
but cumbered with many big rocks and loose stones, when the dogs stopped
and stood quivering and bristling all over, moving their heads slowly
about with noses well raised and sniffing persistently. There was
something now that interested them more than the spoor: they winded the
tiger itself, but could not tell where. No one stirred: we stood
watching the dogs and snatching glances right and left among the
boulders and their a shady creeper-hidden caves and recesses, and as we
stood thus, grouped together in breathless silence, an electrifying
snarling roar came from the krans above and the spotted body of the
tiger shot like a streak out of the black mouth of a cave and across our
front into the bush; there was a series of crashing bounds, as though a
stone rolled from the mountain were leaping through the jungle; and then
absolute silence.
We explored the den; but there was nothing of interest in it--no remains
of food, no old bones, or other signs of cubs. It seemed to be the
retreat of a male tiger--secluded, quiet, and cool. The opening was not
visible from any distance, a split-off slab of rock partly hiding it;
but when we stood upon the rock platform we found that almost the whole
of the horse-shoe bay in the Berg into which we had descended was
visible, and it was with a "Wow!" of surprise and mortification that the
kraal boys found they could see the kraal itself and their goats and
cattle grazing on the slopes and in the valley below.
Tigers do not take their kill to their dens unless there are young cubs
to be fed; as a rule they feed where they kill, or as near to it as
safety permits, and when they have fed their fill they carry off the
remainder of the carcase and hide it. Lions, hyenas, and others leave
what they cannot eat and return to it for their next feed; but tigers
are more provident and more cunning, and--being able to climb trees--
they are very much more difficult to follow or waylay by means of their
kill. They are not big fellows, rarely exceeding seven feet from nose
to tip of tail and 130 pounds in weight; but they are extraordinarily
active and strong, and it is difficult to believe until one has seen the
proof of it that they are able to climb the bare trunk of a tree
carrying a kill much bigger and heavier than themselves, and hang it
safely wedged in some hidden fork out of reach of any other animal. I
have repeatedly seen the remains of their victims in the forks of trees;
once it was part of a pig, but on the other occasions the remains were
of horned animals; the pig was balanced in the fork; the others were
hooked in by the heads and horns.
A well-known hunter once told me an experience of his illustrating the
strength and habits of tigers. He had shot a young giraffe and carried
off as much as he could put on his horse, and hid the rest; but when he
returned next morning it had disappeared, and the spoor of a full-grown
tiger told him why. He followed the drag mark up to the foot of a big
tree and found the remains of the carcase, fully 300 pounds in weight,
in a fork more than twenty feet from the ground.
He left it there as a bait and returned again the following morning on
the chance of a shot; but the meat had once more been removed and on
following up the spoor he found what was left hidden in another tree
some two hundred yards away.
It would have been waste of time to follow our tiger--he would be on the
watch and on the move for hours; so we gave it up at once, and struck
across the spurs for another part of the big arena where pig and
bushbuck were known to feed in the mornings. It was slow and difficult
work, as the bush was very dense and the ground rough. The place was
riddled with game tracks, and we saw spoor of koodoo and eland several
times, and tracks innumerable of wild pig, rietbuck, bushbuck, and
duiker. But there was more than spoor: a dozen times we heard the crash
of startled animals through the reeds or bush only a few yards away
without being able to see a thing.
We had nearly reached the kloof we were aiming for when we had the good
luck to get a bushbuck in a very unexpected way. We had worked our way
out of a particularly dense patch of bush and brambles into a corner of
the woods and were resting on the mossy ground in the shade of the big
trees when the sound of clattering stones a good way off made us start
up again and grab our rifles; and presently we saw, outlined against the
band of light which marked the edge of the timber, a buck charging down
towards us. Three of us fired together, and the buck rolled over within
a few yards of where we stood.
We were then in a `dead end' up against the precipitous face of the Berg
where there was no road or path other than game tracks, and where no
human being ever went except for the purpose of hunting. We knew there
was no one else shooting there, and it puzzled us considerably to think
what had scared the bushbuck; for the animal had certainly been startled
and perhaps chased; the pace, the noise it made, and the blind
recklessness of its dash, all showed that. The only explanation we
could think of was that the tiger, in making a circuit along the slopes
of the Berg to get away from us, must have put the buck up and driven it
down on to us in the woods below, and if that were so, the reports of
our rifles must have made him think that he was never going to get rid
of us.
We skinned and cut up the buck and pushed on again; but the roughness of
the trail and the various stoppages had delayed us greatly, and we
failed to get the expected bag. We got one rietbuck and a young boar;
the rietbuck was a dead shot; but the pig, from the shooting standpoint,
was a most humiliating failure. A troop of twenty or thirty started up
from under our feet as we came out of the blazing sunlight into the
gloom of the woods, and no one could see well enough to aim. They were
led by a grand boar, and the whole lot looked like a troop of charging
lions as they raced by with their bristly manes erect and their tufted
tails standing straight up.
As we stood there, crestfallen and disgusted, we heard fresh grunting
behind, and turning round we saw one pig racing past in the open, having
apparently missed the troop while wallowing in a mudhole and known
nothing of our intrusion until he heard the shooting. We gave him a
regular broadside, and--as is usually the case when you think that
quantity will do in place of quality--made an awful mess of it, and
before we had time to reload Jess and Jock had cut in, and we could not
fire again for fear of hitting them. The boys, wildly delighted by this
irregular development which gave them such a chance, joined in the chase
and in a few seconds it became a chaotic romp like a rat hunt in a
schoolroom. The dogs ranged up on each side and were on to the pig
together, Jess hanging on to one ear and Jock at the neck; the boar dug
right and left at them, but his tusks were short and blunt, and if he
managed to get at them at all they bore no mark of it afterwards. For
about twenty yards they dragged and tugged, and then all three came
somersaulting over together. In the scramble Jock got his grip on the
throat, and Jess--rolled and trampled on--appeared between the pig's
hind legs, sliding on her back with her teeth embedded in one of the
hams. For half a minute the boar, grunting and snorting, plunged about
madly, trying to get at them or to free himself; and then the boys
caught up and riddled him with their assegais.
After the two bombardments of the pigs and the fearful row made by the
boys there was not much chance of putting up anything more, and we made
for the nearest stream in the woods for a feed and a rest before
returning to camp.
We had failed to get the tiger, it is true, and it would be useless
giving more time or further thought to him, for in all probability it
would be a week or more before he returned to his old hunting-ground and
his old marauding tricks, but the porcupine and the pig had provided
more interest and amusement than much bigger game might have done, and
on the whole, although disappointed, we were not dissatisfied: in fact,
it would have needed an ungrateful spirit indeed to feel discontented in
such surroundings.
Big trees of many kinds and shapes united to make a canopy of leaves
overhead through which only occasional shafts of sunlight struck. The
cold mountain stream tumbling over ledges, swirling among rocks or
rippling over pebble-strewn reaches, gurgled, splashed and bubbled with
that wonderful medley of sounds that go to make the lullaby of the
brook. The floor of the forest was carpeted with a pile of staghorn
moss a foot thick, and maidenhair fern grew everywhere with the
luxuriant profusion of weeds in a tropical garden. Traveller's Joy
covered whole trees with dense creamy bloom and spread its fragrance
everywhere; wild clematis trailed over stumps and fallen branches;
quantities of maidenhair overflowed the banks and drooped to the water
all along the course of the stream; whilst, marshalled on either side,
huddled together on little islands, perched on rocks, and grouped on
overhanging ledges, stood the tree-ferns--as though they had come to
drink--their wide-reaching delicate fronds like giant green
ostrich-feathers waving gently to each breath of air or quivering as the
movement of the water shook the trunks.
Long-tailed greeny-grey monkeys with black faces peered down at us,
moving lightly on their branch trapezes, and pulled faces or chattered
their indignant protest against intrusion; in the tops of the wild fig
trees bright green pigeons watched us shyly--great big birds of a
wonderful green; gorgeous louries too flashed their colours and raised
their crests--pictures of extreme and comical surprise; golden cuckoos
there were also and beautiful little green-backed ruby-throated
honey-suckers, flitted like butterflies among the flowers on the sunlit
fringe of the woods.
Now and again guinea-fowl and bush-pheasant craned their necks over some
fallen log or stone to peer curiously at us, then stooping low again
darted along their well-worn runs into the thick bush. The place was in
fact a natural preserve; a `bay' let into the wall of the Berg,
half-encircled by cliffs which nothing could climb, a little world where
the common enemy--man--seldom indeed intruded.
We stayed there until the afternoon sun had passed behind the crest of
the Berg above us; and, instead of going back the way we came, skirted
along the other arm enclosing the bay to have the cool shade of the
mountain with us on our return journey. But the way was rough; the
jungle was dense; we were hot and torn and tired; and the shadow of the
mountain stretched far out across the foothills by the time the corner
was reached. We sat down to rest at last in the open on the long spur
on which, a couple of miles away, the slanting sun picked out the red
and black cattle, the white goats, and the brown huts of the kaffir
kraal.
Our route lay along the side of the spur, skirting the rocky backbone
and winding between occasional boulders, clumps of trees and bush, and
we had moved on only a little way when a loud "Waugh" from a baboon on
the mountain behind made us stop to look back. The hoarse shout was
repeated several times, and each time more loudly and emphatically; it
seemed like the warning call of a sentry who had seen us. Moved by
curiosity we turned aside on to the ridge itself, and from the top of a
big rock scanned the almost precipitous face opposite. The spur on
which we stood was divided from the Berg itself only by a deep but
narrow kloof or ravine, and every detail of the mountain side stood out
in the clear evening air, but against the many-coloured rocks the grey
figure of a baboon was not easy to find as long as it remained still,
and although from time to time the barking roar was repeated, we were
still scanning the opposite hill when one of the boys pointed down the
slope immediately below us and called out, "There, there, Baas!"
The troop of baboons had evidently been quite close to us--hidden from
us only by the little line of rocks--and on getting warning from their
sentry on the mountain had stolen quietly away and were then
disappearing into the timbered depth of the ravine. We sat still to
watch them come out on the opposite side a few minutes later and clamber
up the rocky face, for they are always worth watching; but while we
watched, the stillness was broken by an agonised scream--horribly human
in its expression of terror--followed by roars, barks, bellows and
screams from scores of voices in every key; and the crackle of breaking
sticks and the rattle of stones added to the medley of sound as the
baboons raced out of the wood and up the bare rocky slope.
"What is it?"
"What's the matter?"
"There's something after them."
"Look, look! there they come:" burst from one and another of us as we
watched the extraordinary scene. The cries from below seemed to waken
the whole mountain; great booming "waughs" came from different places
far apart and ever so high up the face of the Berg; each big roar seemed
to act like a trumpet-call and bring forth a multitude of others; and
the air rang with bewildering shouts and echoes volleying round the
kloofs and faces of the Berg. The strange thing was that the baboons
did not continue their terrified scramble up the mountain, but, once out
of the bush, they turned and rallied. Forming an irregular semicircle
they faced down hill, thrusting their heads forward with sudden jerks as
though to launch their cries with greater vehemence, and feinting to
charge; they showered loose earth, stones and debris of all sorts down
with awkward underhand scrapes of their fore-paws, and gradually but
surely descended to within a dozen yards of the bush's edge.
"Baas, Baas, the tiger! Look, the tiger! There, there on the rock
below!"
Jim shot the words out in vehement gusts, choky with excitement; and
true enough, there the tiger was. The long spotted body was crouched on
a flat rock just below the baboons; he was broadside to us, with his
fore-quarters slightly raised and his face turned towards the baboons;
with wide-opened mouth he snarled savagely at the advancing line, and
with right paw raised made threatening dabs in their direction. His
left paw pinned down the body of a baboon.
The voices from the mountain boomed louder and nearer as, clattering and
scrambling down the face, came more and more baboons: there must have
been hundreds of them; the semicircle grew thicker and blacker, more and
more threatening, foot by foot closer. The tiger raised himself a
little more and took swift looks from side to side across the advancing
front, and then his nerve went, and with one spring he shot from the
rock into the bush.
There was an instant forward rush of the half-moon, and the rock was
covered with roaring baboons, swarming over their rescued comrade; and a
moment later the crowd scrambled up the slope again, taking the tiger's
victim with them. In that seething rabble I could pick out nothing, but
all the kaffirs maintained they could see the mauled one dragged along
by its arms by two others, much as a child might be helped uphill.
We were still looking excitedly about--trying to make out what the
baboons were doing, watching the others still coming down the Berg, and
peering anxiously for a sight of the tiger--when once more Jim's voice
gave us a shock.
"Where are the dogs?" he asked; and the question turned us cold. If
they had gone after the baboons they were as good as dead already--
nothing could save them. Calling was useless: nothing could be heard in
the roar and din that the enraged animals still kept up. We watched the
other side of the ravine with something more than anxiety, and when
Jock's reddish-looking form broke through the bracken near to the
tiger's rock, I felt like shutting my eyes till all was over. We saw
him move close under the rock and then disappear. We watched for some
seconds--it may have been a minute, but it seemed an eternity--and then,
feeling the utter futility of waiting there, jumped off the rock and ran
down the slope in the hope that the dogs would hear us call from there.
From where the slope was steepest we looked down into the bed of the
stream at the bottom of the ravine, and the two dogs were there: they
were moving cautiously down the wide stony watercourse just as we had
seen them move in the morning, their noses thrown up and heads turning
slowly from side to side. We knew what was coming; there was no time to
reach them through the bush below; the cries of the baboons made calling
useless; and the three of us sat down with rifles levelled ready to fire
at the first sight. With gun gripped and breath hard held, watching
intently every bush and tree and rock, every spot of light and shade, we
sat--not daring to move. Then, over the edge of a big rock overlooking
the two dogs, appeared something round; and, smoothly yet swiftly and
with a snake-like movement, the long spotted body followed the head and,
flattened against the rock, crept stealthily forward until the tiger
looked straight down upon Jess and Jock.
The three rifles cracked like one, and with a howl of rage and pain the
tiger shot out over the dogs' heads, raced along the stony bed, and
suddenly plunging its nose into the ground, pitched over--dead.
It was shot through the heart, and down the ribs on each side were the
scraped marks of the trap.