In the night we heard the loud barking of a baboon, and next morning
Uncle Abe, accompanied by the witch-doctor, Bolo, started back for his
solitary homestead, saying that he had received a call from his
familiar. This I regarded as an excuse, and judged that the two old men
were bent, like boys, on some fishing excursion. Strangely enough,
however, the black tiger disappeared at the same time, leaving the live
stock free from his ravages--though human thieves as mischievous were
afoot, and during the week paid a visit in the night to the cattle
kraal, "lifting" a fine cow with a young heifer calf.
The spoor led away towards the dense bush of the Fish River to the east,
and setting a knowing old dog upon the scent, I followed on horseback.
The thief I judged had probably five hours' start, and allowing for the
feeble strength of the calf, I reckoned he was from six to ten miles
ahead, when, if surprised by day-light at any distance from the cover of
the bush, he would probably turn into a kloof. At intervals of about a
mile I came on spots which, from the numerous hoof marks, indicated that
the thief had stopped to let the calf rest and take milk, then, after
the third such resting, he went right ahead at a sharp pace directly
towards the big kloof on Abe Pike's farm. If the beasts had been driven
in there I made sure of recovering them, but I presently noticed that
the spoor led away along a ridge to the left, skirting the kloof, and
descending to a wide wooded valley which ran into the bush. I followed
without much hope into the valley, to find the spoor obliterated by the
tracks of a troop of cattle which had been on the move since sunrise.
After questioning the native herd without success, I turned back towards
Pike's house, reaching it just as he came out from his breakfast. He
took a long glance at me and my horse.
"Soh," he said, "been spooring a stock thief, eh? You've got to get up
early to catch that sort--earlier than bedtime. I seed you go over the
brow of that rand yonder with a dog nosing on in front, and I said to
myself, `Abe Pike, there's the young baas with the hope springing up in
him that he's got the glory of catching a cattle thief.' The young has
got all the hope and the old all the experience, and I'd swaap a whole
lot of experience for a glimmer of hope."
All this time he had been attending to the horse, rubbing its back and
legs with a wisp of straw.
"Who said I had been after a cattle thief?
"What are words, sonny; words is nothing--nothing but a slower way of
saying a thing you have already made plain enough by your actions. Says
I, `Abe Pike, the young baas has lost a beast, maybe a cow and calf, and
bymby he'll be looking as black as thunder and as hungry as a mule.'"
"Uncle Abe, you know something about this robbery. It is true I have
lost a cow and calf. Have you seen them?"
"What! me? Where is they? You know well if Abe Pike had seen them
they'd a been right here waiting for you. No, lad; but I saw you
follering straight on the spoor, and if there'd been several beasts some
on 'em would have broke from the track, making the spooring bend and
twist. So I reckoned there were only one beast, maybe a cow and calf.
There's a dough cookie under the coals and some good honey, with a
couple of fresh aigs and a roast mealie, not to say a cup of as good
coffee as you can get. Help yourself, lad; help yourself."
I sat down to this simple fare--after raking the "cookie" from the
fire-place, whence it came baking hot with wood cinders embedded in its
steaming crust; while Abe leant against the door-post, pulling
reflectively at his pipe.
"What has become of Bolo?" I asked.
"He quitted last night. No, he ain't gone off with your cow. He was
skeered."
I nodded an inquiry, being engaged with the mealie cob, the eating of
which occupies the mouth too fully for speech.
"Old Bolo were skeered. Try some of that honey--it's real good. None
of your euphorbia juice in it to burn your mouth out, but just ripe
sweetness from the hill flowers and sugar bushes."
The old man held his pipe away, and his lips were drawn in as I placed a
piece of gleaming yellow comb on my plate.
"Yes," he chuckled, "old Bolo were skeered, and he lit out for home.
You see, him and me were sitting away yonder, under the tree in the
shade, talking about things, when up comes a honey-bird.
`Chet-chet-chet-chee!' he said, sitting up there in the branches, with
his head on one side and then the other as he fussed about with his
news. `Chet-chet-chet-chee!' he said--which is his way of saying as how
he'd found a honey-tree and wanted someone to go shares with him.
"`Shall we foller him!' says I.
"Bolo he grunted. For a heathen he's spry, but it was his lazy time,
and for another thing he was in the middle of a long-winded story, which
he was bound to finish, being a born talker, and very strong ag'inst
being interrupted.
"`Chet-chet-chet-chee!' said the honey-bird, jumping from one branch to
another all in a quiver of impatience.
"`Come on,' says I, `let's see what sort of a nest he's got.'
"`That bird is a mischief bird,' said Bolo; `he will lead us to a snake
or a tiger. Eweh! to the black tiger.'
"`How?' says I.
"`Why,' says he, `if he were a good bird he would sit away over there on
that thorn bush and wait till we have finished our talk. This bird is
too anxious.'
"Just then that bird flew away, off to the thorn tree, and there he sat
dumb.
"`By Jimminy,' says I, `that's funny.'
"Bolo he took a pinch of snuff, and he drove on with his story, with his
`congella wetu,' and his `ke-ke-lo-ko-ke,' jes' 's if nothing had
happened, while I sat with my eyes fixed on that there bird.
"Well, the longest river reaches the sea some time, and at last Bolo
finished that yarn, and what it was about I couldn't tell you, sonny.
`Now,' says I, `let us investigate this matter,' and hang me ef at that
precise moment of the ending of that yarn, the bird didn't come back,
all agog with his news.
"Bolo he shook his head. `That bird is no bird,' he says, `it's a
familiar.'
"`Whose familiar?' says I.
"`It belongs to that dog of a Fingo,' naming a rival medicine man, `or
else 'tis a slave of the black tiger sent to lead us into a trap.'
"`Well,' says I, `honey is sweet, though it gives a man a bad _pense_,
as the Royal motter says, and I'm for follering him.' So up I got, and
that bird he jes' flew off, lighting here an' lighting there, so as I
could keep up, and after a mile he sot still as death on a thorn bush.
"`Is this the place?' says I.
"The honey-bird kep' quiet, but he jes' turn his eye on me all of a
sparkle.
"Well, I jes' sniffed aroun' and squinted aroun', and in a brace of
shakes I spotted the honey nest in a hollow ant-hill. Well, I scooted
back to the house for a bucket, and after smokin' the bees, got out
fifty pound weight of the finest sealed honey, not forgetting to set a
piece of comb with young bees in it for the bird.
"Well, Bolo was pretty sick when he saw me come in with that bucket
full, and he was standing there saying he knew all along that bird was a
good bird, but he didn't want to find the honey seeing as it was on my
farm, and he'd be sure to find it first, whereby he could claim half,
which was against hospitality. Right there, sonny, that there bird come
and perched on the roof. `Chet-chet-chee!' says he, as excited as if he
hadn't had a meal for a month. I see it was the same bird, for there
was a stickiness about his head.
"`Oh, aie;' says Bolo, then he shouted from his chest. `My little
friend in the grey suit, lead on!'
"Well, the bird flew off, and Bolo, he went after, whistling and calling
it good names. I jest pottered about by the house into the afternoon,
looking out every now and ag'in to see if Bolo were coming back, when of
a sudden I see him tearing acrost the veld. He shot by me into the
house, and hang me if he didn't bang the door in my face, and at the
same time that honey-bird lighted on the roof. You never see sich a
sight as that bird. He opened his mouth, spread his wings, rolled about
and laughed fit to bust himself. Bymby he flew away with a final
screech, and Bolo opened the door, his natrally black face being green,
his lips curled back from his teeth, and his eyes rolling. I up with a
beaker of water and threw it in his face to cool him off--and he came
round.
"`Did you find the honey-tree?' says I.
"`Honey-tree!' says he, and his eyes began to roll ag'in, as though he
were trying to look inside his head. `There were no honey-tree. It was
a bad bird I knew it, I told you, and you would not believe the words of
the wise man. I am going--where are my kerries?'
"`What happened?'
"`This. Listen. I followed the evil thing. It led me across the veld
and a thorn caught me by the leg. It was a warning, but I did not heed,
I went on across the ridge to the kloof, and into the kloof to a hollow
tree. I heard the owl cry, the night-bird calling in the day, giving
another warning, but I was deaf. I smelt honey, and there were no bees
flying in the hole; but the smell of honey was strong. Into the hole I
was about to thrust my arm when I saw on the bark long scratches. I
looked up through the plume on my head, so, without turning my face, and
up above on a branch I saw a black form stretching out and yellow eyes
fixed on me; at the same time out of the hollow of the tree there came a
low laugh, strange, fearful, not of man, and with a spring backwards and
a bound sideways, I was off like the deer, with the roar of the black
tiger in my ears.'
"So said Bolo, and without further words he took his kerries and his
bag, and he went away over the hill to the north, running. Yes, lad, he
quit at a gallop."
"And what do you think of this story, Uncle Abe?"
"I've done a lot of thinking about it. I thunked that there wooden
shetter for the window as a protection."
"Surely you don't believe that Bolo was led deliberately by the
honey-bird to the tiger?"
"Maybe I do. Maybe the bird led him to a sure enough bee-tree. Maybe
Bolo happened on the black critter. Maybe he were skeered at a shadder.
I dunno; but I tell you I see the bird laf fit to bust, and there's
more in the ways of these animiles than we can catch hold of--a jolly
sight more."
"Well, then, bring your gun along and we'll put the dog on the tiger's
spoor."
"Not this child! No, no, sonny! You leave me to get the blind side of
that tiger; but I've got my own plan, and it's not tracking him I am
when he's on the watch. Not me."
"What plan, Uncle?"
"There's a powerful thinking machine in a honey-bird," said the old man
slowly, so dismissing his plan from the talk; "and when you come to
think of it, the first bird that led a man to a nest must ha' been a
great diskiverer--a greater diskiverer in his way than was that Columbus
chap who smashed the egg. That bird must a reckoned the whole thing
out, an' if he could a reckoned way back in the years, why, it stands to
reason his children, after all the experience they've larnt, must reckon
a lot more. One day one of these birds called me, and I picked up a
bucket and a chopper, and followed after him at a run, for he was in a
mighty hurry, being, as I thought, hungry. It warn't that, sonny. He
was jes' mean, and he knew it, for the bee-tree he were leading me to
belonged to another bird. I found that out when that bird come along.
The two of them had a argument--the new one expostulatin', the other one
jes' ansering in a don't-care way. The second one he flew off--yelling
threats, and the other one, after bunching himself up, suddenly lit out
ag'in with me after him. I found the tree, took out the honey, and gave
the bird a piece of comb. Then, as I was sittin' down with the pipe, up
came a hull lot of birds, with a black-headed, white-throated fiscal--
the chap with a hooked beak who sticks the grasshoppers on thorns out of
sheer devilment. Well, sonny, believe me, those birds they jes' up and
tried that honey-bird, the other chap giving evidence. The jury, which
were composed of a yellow oriole, a blue spreuw, and a mouse-bird, they
found my bird guilty, and a old white ringed crow, who was the jedge,
pronounced sentence of death. My bird didn't say nothing. He jes' sot
there with a piece of honey in his mouth, and a set, gloomy look in his
eye. After the verdict that fiscal he swooped down, fixed his claws in
the prisoner's breast, and yanked his head off his neck with a twist.
It was summery justice on that bird for taking possession of the other
bird's honey-tree. Yes, the fiscal he just yanked the prisoner's head
off, and the body fell to the ground. Then the jedge he buried the
bird."
"How was that?"
"He jes' ate it. He jes' flopped down, give a caw, and swallowed the
corpse. I went home then, thinking as how they might try me for aiding
and abetting a crime."