the great bole with ready shotgun, for he could not tell how many
jungle dwellers might have camped under it during the storm. A grand
scampering and creeping rustled the dry leaves under the trunk, but it
soon stopped and the flashlight showed the cavelike space all clear.
Dwight shouldered his way into it, and at once cleared a space for
a fire and began peeling off strips of dry bark from the under side
of the tree. Blessed, blessed fire! The one human thing in all this
dark jungle! That was the turning point in his mental distress, for
dejection gave way to cheerfulness, wandering homelessness to a hearth
and a campfire. Soon the warmth of its small blaze penetrated even his
chilled bones, and it and the quinine gradually drove off his fever.
Dwight waited out the night under the trunk, trying the cave man’s
posture of sleep, squatting on his hams with his head resting on arms
crossed over his knees (still used by the hill men of India and by many
tribes of the Malay Archipelago). He found it not so bad, even though
irksome to a white man’s heel tendon. Keeping the fire going with bark
and small branches broken from the tree trunk, he gradually dried out,
and at length there came the dawn of another day and the jungle awoke
to life.
Starting off by compass again, he steered due west, bound in time to
strike the brook. It was not for an hour more of traveling that the
jungle began to lighten on ahead, and bits of sky, glimpses of mountain
side, and the tops of low trees told him he was coming to where the
brook skirted the plateau. Dense, thorny underbrush began to block
his way now, and beyond it came the rippling murmur of the stream. He
shouted for the curator and his party, hoping that he was near enough
to camp for his voice to be heard. No answer came, except the sough
of the wind over the grasses and bushes of the plateau, so Dwight
decided to get out into the open and study the mountains for something
familiar. He forced his way to the stream-side and jumped across.
He discovered, from the familiar headlands of the mountain chain, that
he was some distance above camp. It seemed well to fire another signal
in the open, and he was about to do so when three large birds as big as
ostriches jumped from the grass in the swales and began to run, making
a scraping, cackling noise something like the wild brush turkey.
“Cassowaries!” exclaimed Dwight, thrilling with adventure again as his
gun sprang to shoulder. They were running like deer, their red, wattled
heads and bright-blue necks stretched out ahead like giant chickens.
His shotgun held only sixes, so Dwight aimed for the speeding head of
the nearest cassowary as at a flying quail, swinging ahead and firing
like a wing shot.
The cassowary went down, while the other two flapped off in a wild
burst of speed, using their wings to aid their legs. Dwight rushed
out, intending to finish off his bird with the knife, as he did not
wish to injure the skin of the specimen with a close-up shot. The
great bird lay in the grass as he came up, its fiery eye looking at
him, unconquered, like a rooster that has been worsted in a fight.
As he rushed up it flew at him, squawking discordantly. Dwight beat
him off with the barrels of his gun. The air seemed full of the great
black wings of his adversary, blinding him with blows of the coarse,
double-quilled pinions. It never occurred to him that a cassowary
could be really dangerous, and he laughed confidently as the heavy
bird fell to the ground and prepared to spring again. With the second
leap its long blue neck lunged out and its blunt bill caught his shirt
collar and held on like a snapping turtle, while its stout legs drummed
fiercely on his chest. Dwight felt the canvas of his coat being ripped,
and then a sharp pain seared down his breast to the belt like a hot
iron. He was now fighting off the cassowary desperately, stabbing
blindly, and warding off the blows of the wings on his head with his
left arm. The tearing and rending of its legs on his chest kept up with
increasing violence, and he was forced to bring his elbows in close to
protect his stomach, dropping his knife and grabbing with his hands at
the stout feet of the cassowary--anything to prevent being disemboweled!
[Illustration: THEN A SHIVER WENT THROUGH THE BIRD, ITS EYES FLUTTERED
CLOSED, AND THE GRIP OF ITS BILL LOOSENED, WHILE THE BOY TUGGED HIMSELF
FREE]
Then a shiver went through the bird, its eyes fluttered closed,
and the grip of its bill loosened, while the boy tugged himself free.
He jumped for his knife in a battling rage, intending to close in and
finish his adversary, who was now kicking feebly, when he heard a
shout, and turned to see Sadok and the curator come running across the
swales. A sumpitan dart sticking in the bird’s side told all!
“Did he hurt you?” yelled the curator, sprinting toward him. “Don’t
ever go near a wounded cassowary, you darn fool!” he exploded,
wrathfully, as he came up. “Don’t you know they’re more dangerous than
a kangaroo? Look!”
He stooped and held up the bird’s claw. On the inside toe was a long
hooked talon, curved and sharp as a tiger’s claw.
“Did he get you with it?” demanded the curator, looking at him
anxiously, for Dwight still stood looking at him, speechless, holding
to his chest with his left hand.
“Guess he did!” gasped the boy, swaying weakly. He lifted his hand and
his fingers ran red with blood.
“Catch him, Sadok!” warned the curator as his own hand dove for the
first-aid in his hip pocket. Dwight leaned against Sadok’s strong
shoulder, while the curator opened his shirt and examined the wound
hastily. Two long gashes in his chest bled rather freely, but nothing
serious had been cut.
“Lucky for you, son! He’d have ripped you open just as nice! Lots of
new-chums have been killed that way!” said the curator, cheerfully.
“Lie down awhile; you’ll feel better presently,” he ordered, for Dwight
was white as a sheet. “But, congratulations, boy, first of all, on
your getting back to us! I had not time to say so, you know, in the
excitement of this ruction,” he apologized. “We’ll have to hunt in
pairs in the future. Where have you been, Dwight, and why did you stay
out all night?”
“It was worth it!” smiled the boy, feebly, and he dug into his coat
pocket and brought out the six-shafted bird of paradise, carefully
swathed in his handkerchief.
The curator undid the fastenings; then a whoop of joy escaped him.
“Boy!” he beamed, reaching forward to shake Dwight’s hand again. “It
sure _was_ worth it! Man, it’s the big prize of the expedition--so far!”
He and Sadok then fired shots and called until they brought Nicky and
Baderoon out of the jungle. Nicky came up on the run.
“Where’s Dwight? What’s happened?” he cried, anxiously; then, catching
sight of Dwight: “You--old--hatrack!” he burbled, flinging himself
affectionately on his chum. “Say, the whole camp was worrying about you
and firing guns, last night! Get lost in the jungle?”
“Nope. He got--this!” cut in the curator, holding up the flaming
glories of the paradise bird for Nicky to admire. “And then--a
cassowary tried to scrape an acquaintance with him, so to speak!” He
laughed, pointing out the huge bird lying in the grass, with Sadok
working over his skin.
“And, b’lieve me, your li’l’ old dart got there just in time!” chirped
Dwight from the grass. “Shake, Sadok!”
“Make a stretcher out of a couple of coats and two poles, boys!”
ordered the curator, energetically, as Sadok finished the cassowary
skin with a grunt of satisfaction. “We four’ll tote him to camp. How
about Camp Cassowary for a name for this stop, hey, boys?”
VIII
PYGMY LAND
“This is not an expedition--it’s getting to be a hospital!” exclaimed
the curator, whimsically, as Dwight was tucked away under his own tent
fly. “Baderoon’s arm is still game, and Dwight will be at least three
days getting healed up--yet. Did you ever see such glorious country to
move about in, or such wonderful weather?”
Nicky agreed with him. He had collected in British Guiana and the West
Indies, yet this was the first time he had been free of the eternal
green maze of the deep jungle. Up here, high on the mountain flanks,
it was hot and dry, and the vegetation was more like the open African
veldt. Across the creek, to the east, and down into the lowlands, swept
the damp jungle; back of camp, to the west, rose the mountain sides,
inviting them irresistibly to climb up and see what might be seen from
their tops.
Dwight’s adventure with the cassowary had upset their plans badly.
There was no telling how soon he could move, for wounds in the tropics
have an aggravating way of infecting and becoming obstinate about
healing. The curator chafed over the delay, scarce daring to hope that
the dry, breezy climate of the mountains would bring a swift closing
of the scratches of the cassowary’s claw. He considered, meanwhile,
the advisability of setting out with Nicky on a scouting tour, leaving
Sadok and Baderoon to guard the camp. He finally decided to risk a
day’s absence.
“Dwight,” said he, coming over to the boy’s tent after making up his
mind, “Nicky and I are going to climb this mountain back of us, and do
some mapping and exploring from its top. We’ll be gone all day, and
possibly the night, too. It’s taking a chance, to break up our party
this way, I know, but half our time has already gone by since the proa
left, and we must be up and doing. I’m leaving you the most deadly
weapon I’ve got.” He pulled out a bright, shiny, nickel bomb from a
flap case on his belt. It seemed very light and fragile to Dwight as he
handled it.
“I call it the ‘explorer’s bomb,’” said the curator. “It’s filled
with H. E. explosive. To arm it you bend this little copper projection
over until it breaks off and you hear a hiss. Then throw it for all
you’re worth and run! If a war party comes up, and they won’t keep
their distance or act hostile, throw it among them, and then you and
the others bolt for cover.” He unbelted the bomb’s carrying case, and
Dwight replaced the missile in it gingerly. “You won’t have to use it,
I’m sure,” said the curator, confidently. “Between the _lakatoi_ and
the canoe fight we’ve got a reputation for being best left alone, in
this region, I’m thinking.”
He and Nicky set off early next morning. They went straight up the
mountain side through the thick and thorny jungle. The geological
formation was of comparatively recent lava rock, and the regular slope
signified that an old extinct volcano crater formed its top, no doubt
long since filled up and overgrown. As they climbed steadily higher,
and wider and wider vistas of the country came to view, this impression
was confirmed. High up on the slopes a regular talus of broken lava
rock from some former eruption barred their way. The bowlders were of
all sizes and their crevices and sunny flats held many a snake, so
that Nicky, as “snakeologist” of the expedition, felt constrained to
cut a snake stick and go after them.
The curator lit his pipe and sat down to spy out the country,
meanwhile, with his glasses. Presently Nicky passed him, carrying a
long stick of lignum-vitæ with a length of string tied to its top. Just
under it he had nailed a staple with the string looped through it.
Nicky stalked along, jumping from rock to rock, his eyes intent below
him. Presently he made a quick jab with the stick, pulled tight on the
string, and then bore aloft a squirming red-and-black serpent, vainly
winding itself around the end of the stick, while its head struck
futilely at the empty air.
“_Elaterus wallacei_--deadly poisonous,” announced Nicky,
scientifically, holding up the creature for the curator to admire.
“Isn’t he a beauty?”
“Handsome!” agreed the curator, laughingly. “Not _quite_ so near,
Nick--and I hope you’ve got tight hold of that string!”
“Sure! Watch me make a specimen of him!” said the enthusiast, picking
up a small club. He held the end of the snake stick down on a rock,
where a few judgmatical raps reduced his captive to a scientific
curiosity.
Nicky dropped him in a small canvas bag which was pretty sure to have
a few lizards and frogs and turtles in it, also, at any given time
of day, and they set out upward again. A wide belt of century plants
barred their way as they climbed higher. They grew in rank profusion,
the great green leaves crossing in every direction, six feet high,
and all armed with a dagger point at the tip and saw teeth along the
blades. A man’s eyes would be worth nothing if he once got himself well
into them.
A detour of about a mile brought them around the century plants, and
then came lava escarpments, steep and difficult to climb. Up them they
swarmed, and found themselves on a gradually rising, arid table-land
with sparse vegetation growing all about, and magnificent views out in
every direction.
Working southward, they finally came out on a bald knob that the
curator had noted from the camp below and had determined to reach. Here
the view was superb, wonderful--when you came to consider that all you
looked at below was new and unmapped country. The curator’s pocket
aneroid gave their height at a little over six thousand feet. Far over
to the east could be made out the dim outlines of Geelvink Bay, with
the limitless Pacific behind it. Below them, to the west, the slopes
ran down sharply to the mangrove swamps that lined the shores fronting
on the Banda Sea, with the long point of Cape Debelle jutting out as if
on a small relief map directly below them. Beyond it, far over the sea,
a bank of clouds on the horizon told them of Aru, a hundred miles away.
But it was to the south that their eyes turned with the most inquiring
interest. Here the ranges rose higher and higher, under heavy banks
of clouds, until, on the extreme horizon, the sun glinted on a white,
snowy sea of mountains, jagged with peaks and caps, with Carstensz
(17,000 feet) just visible as a tiny jutting point of white. Two
hundred years ago Jan Carstensz, navigating along these shores, caught
a glimpse of the Snow Mountains from the decks of his vessel and
reported them in the ship’s log. It was such a rare glimpse, behind the
eternal veil of clouds that shrouds the interior of New Guinea, that
no one believed him. From that day to this, a lifting of the jungle
clouds hanging low over the mountains, and the white man present to see
them, have never come at the same time, so that even the existence of
the high fellows in the interior has been regarded as a wild tale of
Jan Carstensz. It was not for more than two centuries later, in 1911,
that Jan Lorentz, another intrepid Hollander, with a party of twenty
Dyaks, made a dash through the pygmy country and ascended the first one
of the Snow Mountains, naming it Mt. Wilhelmina in honor of the Dutch
queen.
From their own knob another wonderful feature of the country could also
be seen, extending southward in a long flat perspective--the Great
Precipice. For two hundred miles this precipice extends like a rampart,
dividing the mountains from the flat jungle. It rises sometimes to a
sheer height of ten thousand feet, undoubtedly the grandest precipice
in the world. Sloping up to it, they could make out the jungle-clad
talus, and beyond that the lowlands of the river country, widening out
more and more as the coast land flowed southward. Dozens of rivers,
they knew, cut through this jungle, out of sight in the green sea of
foliage, and here was the scene of the English expedition, their
party arriving full of hope and confidence, only to be baffled by the
precipice and the swift floods of the rivers from getting farther than
the foothills of the Snow Mountains. Here they had discovered the race
of pygmies, and had visited one of their villages, collected implements
of war and domestic usage, and, most valuable of all, a list of some
fourteen words in their tongue, now carefully preserved for future use
in the curator’s notebook.
“Nicky,” said the curator, after a long and careful examination of a
spot on the jungly hills to the south of them, “I wish you would take a
look at that scar over yonder, where a sort of ravine seems to run down
the second mountain to the south of us. My eyes may be deceiving me,
but--” He handed over the glasses.
Nicky looked eagerly, with his fresh young eyes glued to the binoculars.
“Huts! Little huts, ’way up in the tree tops! I’m sure of it!” he
cried, after a careful scrutiny.
“I knew it!” said the curator, quietly. “Those huts up in the tree tops
are where the unmarried girls of the pygmy tribes sleep. That marks
it as a pygmy village. See if you can’t make out larger huts on the
ground.”
Nicky studied the jungle awhile, with intense concentration. “I see
them,” he cried, handing the curator the glasses. “The small huts are
built up in bare pandanus trees, and under the palms and bamboos around
them I can see a brown shape like a bear’s back--that’s a thatched hut.”
Baldwin agreed with him, after a look for himself. Together they
planned a route to reach the village in about two days’ march.
“Say, Mr. Baldwin, that war party of the Outanatas was on its way for a
fight with _them_, when they came upon us--that’s my hunch!” declared
Nicky, with sudden conviction.
“No doubt! There’s probably more or less of an old trail, if we look
for it. And now for some plane-table surveys, Nicky.”
The curator unfolded a large blank sheet among the rear pages of his
notebook, and on it drew a rough map of the country, with Nicky to
help with comment and suggestion. Then out of his mess kit he took a
flat, round brass box, which turned out to be a compass with folding
sight bars. With this compass, bearing sights were taken of all the
prominent peaks and hills in sight, and the map was then corrected to
agree with the bearings.
Then the curator indicated a tall banyan tree growing on the end of a
spur of the mountain opposite to them to the south.
“See that tree, Nick?” he asked. “We’ll climb up there to-morrow, and
take all these bearings again from that point. Where they intersect
these we have taken from here will be the true positions of all these
interior peaks and valleys on our maps. That’s the way we make an
accurate plane-table survey.”
“How about the distance from here to the banyan tree as a base line?”
objected Nicky. “How’ll we lay that out on the map? We don’t know it.”
“We’ll measure it, son. We’ll lay off a base line down in those open
swales where the cassowary got his Dwight, so to speak, and we’ll sight
this knob and the banyan tree, both, from below. With a known base,
and the two triangles erected on it by bearing angles, it’s a cinch to
calculate the distance from this knob to the banyan.”
They descended the mountain to camp, finding Dwight up and about and
puttering around his camp, an occupation he dearly loved. Baderoon was
loafing to his heart’s content, and Sadok had succeeded in adding a
rare black cockatoo to the collections. That evening Nicky and the
curator went into the open and measured off a base line. From both ends
of it their mountain knob and the banyan tree on the next mountain to
the south could be sighted. The compass was set up on a stake, and the
bearings of both points carefully taken from each end of the base line.
It was dark when they got through.
After the camp had fed for the night, the curator came over to Nicky’s
fly and squatted there, with his notebook spread out. He first laid
off their base line in a small number of the blue-line squares on a
page of the notebook. From the ends of this he drew the angles they had
taken with the compass. They formed two thin, wedge-shaped triangles,
slanting away from the base line in opposite directions. Counting the
blue squares between the outer points of these two triangles gave the
distance between the knob and the banyan tree compared with the base
line, from which it was easy to figure the actual distance. Laying this
out on his map, they were ready for the climb next day.
It did not seem possible to Nicky that they could climb up a
new mountain, clear up to that banyan tree, without a series of
hair-raising adventures, but, strange to say, it was done! The boy
began to study out this phenomenon, finally, so unusual did it seem,
and he found the secret of it lay in the curator’s method. He was
after a plane-table survey, now, and so he let all the wild creatures
alone--and they let him alone! Cassowaries and brush turkeys ran off,
squawking cackles through the swales of saw grass, but the curator
heeded them not. Wallabys leapt for cover, and were let go free. They
passed a high pandanus with a tree kangaroo crawling in its top, but no
Nicky was detailed to go up after him. Snakes of high and low degree,
fascinating in the extreme to Nicky, went squirming on their ways
unchased. Even a cuscus of a new kind was passed by unmolested. Nicky
perceived that trouble would not hunt you, if you did not seek it, in
the New Guinea jungle. In a surprisingly short time they were at the
foot of the banyan tree and truing up all the points on the map with
intersecting lines drawn from their position.
“Besides which, we have added a lot of stuff to the north which I
can correct with coast surveys,” concluded the curator as he folded
the pocket notebook. “I reckon this map will admit me to the Royal
Geographic and entitle me to a whole alphabet tacked on after my
name--much that I care!” he laughed. “The thing for us to do now is to
push on and visit the pygmies, and then for Cinnabar Mountain! Sorry
this survey did not show it up. Must be farther on to the south.”
Next day camp was broken and the whole party was on the move. Baderoon
was entirely well, now, and Dwight so far healed that he and Sadok had
overturned nearly every rock near camp the day before, adding hundreds
of new beetles to his collection. They followed at first the old war
trail of the Outanatas, and then, as it deviated away, took the route
planned out by Nicky and the curator through the mountains from the
knob. That night the tents were pitched on the edge of a warm, dry
field of yellow grass, with coco palms and wild, small-fruited bananas
crowding out into the clearing. A little stream, flowing into their old
friend the creek, gave their roots the necessary water, and made a rill
to camp besides. It all reminded Nicky and Dwight of some of their
earlier Florida camps with the curator, and they felt entirely at home.
At dawn each man cooked him a breakfast, rolled up his pack, and by
sunup they were on the trail again. From across the valley, a look-see
by Nicky up on the hillside disclosed the pygmy village, now not
half a day’s march away, and they went along cautiously, guns and
pistols ready and the curator’s air gun loaded with a short-range
shell, for they might come on a party of them unexpectedly and no one
could foresee the outcome. About a mile from the village they halted,
and chose an easily defended position on the mountain side. There
they waited for some of the pygmies to come that way. There was a
well-defined trail just below them, and they judged that it was often
used. In perhaps an hour voices came along it through the jungle. A
small party, of four warriors and a dog, were walking single file along
the path, and at sight of the curator they all stopped with guttural
exclamations of alarm.
It seemed to Dwight that he had never looked upon such
villainous-looking little men. They were about four feet six inches
high, the tallest not four feet nine; brownish black in color; and,
instead of the Papuan mop of frizzled hair, their heads were nearly
bald, with black chin and side whiskers, in a sort of thick mane from
ear to ear. They carried bows at least a foot longer than they were
tall, spears, and a net bag slung over the shoulder. Each man had also
a small sack containing his fire sticks and other belongings slung
about his neck. In place of the usual loin cloth, or just plain nudity,
each wore a long, yellow half gourd, hung from a string around his
middle and secured by a thong through the crotch.
Dwight thrilled to realize that he was looking upon the original
aborigines of New Guinea. Like the Negritos of the Philippines, and
our own cave men forbears, they were short, strong little men, with
well-developed muscles and stout legs, and they were in a high state
of hunting-tribe civilization, as shown by the decency of the gourd,
the absence of barbaric ornament, and the efficient hunter’s equipment
that each man carried. They did not seem particularly afraid, but stood
staring at the white party, arrows on bow, ready for any eventuality.
The curator grinned and, pointing at the mangy-looking dog, “_Wiwi!_”
he pronounced.
The four started with astonishment, to hear a word in their own tongue
spoken by this strange-looking white man.
Then, pointing at the most clownish-looking one of the four,
“_Amare-ta?_” (“His?”) he asked, smiling genially.