13 Tiger Adventure (10 page)

‘But we don’t have camels in the Gir Forest.’

‘You have this one. I think he’s a stranger. Probably he came over from Tibet by a pass through the mountains. But he seems to be very much at home here, eating the sort of food that camels like - twigs, thistles and thorns.’

‘No animal eats that kind of stuff.’

‘I’ll bring him in and you will see. They will eat cloth, old mats, baskets, newspapers, umbrellas, anything they can get down their throats.’

‘Are you just joking, or is this all true?’

‘You will see for yourself if I can bring him in. Of course I am speaking of the ones I know - those in Africa. But I have read that these two-humped beasts are the same so far as their food is concerned. I’ll try to bring him in. Wish me luck.’

The headman smiled. ‘My dear friend, I do wish you luck. You have brought luck to my village by taking away the leopard that was killing so many of my people. I think you

are mistaken about the camel. Perhaps it was a yak that you saw. But, anyhow, I wish you all the best.’

Hal set out in search of his camel. He took along some old magazines. They ought to make a pleasant breakfast for a hungry camel. He put a lasso over his shoulder. It would serve as a bridle to lead the camel to the camp where it could feast on more magazines.

He found the camel very close to where it had been the day before. He approached it quietly. The camel saw him but did not stir. This was no wild beast. If it had come from Tibet it would be used to people and as tame as a horse or a dog.

Hal offered it a copy of the National Geographic Magazine. The camel at once became a subscriber. It chewed the magazine to a pulp and swallowed it.

Just where it went is a mystery. The camel has several stomachs and how it chooses one or another is not known.

All the magazines Hal had brought were eagerly accepted and the big brown eyes told Hal that he was a good guy and the camel would love him so long as the supply of such dainties lasted.

Hal slipped the noose over the camel’s neck and led it back to camp. Vic was there, probably planning to steal something more from the Hunt menagerie.

He laughed when he saw Hal walking, leading the animal.

‘Why don’t you ride it?’ he asked. ‘111 bet you don’t know how to ride a camel. You do it just the way you ride a horse. I’ve had a lot of experience riding horseback.’

Tine.’ said Hal. Then perhaps you’d like to take a ride on this camel.’

‘Sure. Why not? I’ll show you how ifs done. You sit up there on one of those humps.’

He came close to the animal and looked up at the front hump. It was six feet above his own head.

Hal kindly suggested, ‘Perhaps you meant between the humps.’

‘Yes, yes. That’s what I meant. Between the humps.’ But the dip between the humps was still five feet above Vic’s head.

Hal encouraged him: ‘Jump up and take a ride.’ Vic jumped. He was not much of a jumper. He went up only a couple of feet and came down hard.

‘You’ve got to have stirrups.’ he said. ‘Every saddle horse has stirrups.’

‘Well, this one doesn’t have stirrups.’

Then what can I do?’

‘I’ll try to get him down for you.’ said Hal. He put his hand on top of the camel’s nose and pushed down. He said, ‘Down. Down.’ He had no idea of the Tibetan word for ‘down’. The camel, of course, did not understand him. But it did understand that pressure on its nose. It came down to earth.

There.’ said Hal. ‘All you have to do is to hop on.’

Vic tried hopping but it was no use. The lowest place in the camel’s back between the humps was about level with his head. Vic tried and sweated, and sweated and tried. His face was getting purple with the effort.

Hal picked up a pole and put it in Vic’s hand.

‘What’s that for?’ Vic demanded sourly. ‘Do you think I’m going to climb up that pole?’

‘Not exactly. But you were in college for one semester. In the gym you had to do the pole vault.’

Vic didn’t want to confess that he had never been in the gym. He didn’t know what to do with the pole.

‘If you think it’s so easy, do it yourself.’ he said.

Carrying the pole, Hal backed off a hundred feet, then came running. He used the pole to hoist himself into the air and sat down between the two humps. Then he slid to the ground.

Vic laughed scornfully. That’s nothing. Anybody can do it with a pole.’

Then you do it.’ said Hal.

Vic took the pole, retreated a hundred feet, and then came on the run. The lower end of the pole was supposed to go into the ground. Instead, it went into the camel. Vic followed, hurtling into the camel’s flank. The camel, groaning, swung its head around and gave Vic a good bite on his shoulder.

Vic looked utterly defeated. Hal was sorry for him. He said, ‘I’ll give you a hand up.’ He linked his hands together, making a cup into which, with some difficulty, Vk placed one of his feet. Then Hal lifted him so that he could get to his place between the two humps. ‘See?’ said Vic. ‘It’s easy when you know how.’ The next thing was to get the animal up on its feet. The camel has a very weird way of getting up. It rises first on its hind legs. This would be quite all right except that the beast is still down on its front knees. Vic was thrown violently forward. He threw his arms around the front hump and hung on for dear life. But dear life wasn’t good enough. Now the animal came up on its front feet with such force that Vic was tossed in a back-somersault that landed him on the ground behind the camel. The annoyed camel added insult to injury by kicking him in the midriff.

So Hal brought the camel to earth again and hoisted Vic to its back. The camel was peeved by all this folderol and gave him a nip on the other shoulder with his great yellow fangs. Such a nip can be fatal, thanks to blood poisoning from those dirty teeth.

Hal removed the lasso and replaced it with a cord that would serve as a halter. Vic gave the beast a kick with his heels and his mount repeated the terrific toss backward and forward as it rose, then started to walk.

Past experience on horseback did Vic no good. The motion of the camel was a complete surprise. It was a violent catapult forward, then backward. ‘The wave passed up the spine like the crack of a whip. His neck became tired from the effort of his head to stick to his body.

Hal heard the camel gargling as he went along. The gargling sounded as if the beast were trying to say ‘Jeremiah’. So Hal promptly named the animal Jeremiah.

Jeremiah had no bridle. When Vic wanted the animal to go to the right he laid hold of the cord and pulled the beast’s head to the right. Then the camel went where he pleased, anywhere except to the right. When Vic wished him to go to the left he pulled Jeremiah’s head in that direction and nine times out of ten the camel went to the right.

The camel did not need to see where he was going. He would plod calmly along while turning his head completely round to look at Vic with his great sorrowful eyes, or putting his head upside down beneath his body to bite at a fly.

Finding the cord unsatisfactory, Vic began to use his toes. To do this best, Vic took off his shoes. He wriggled his toes against the left side of the camel’s neck for a right turn, and on the right side for a left.

It didn’t work. Nothing worked. The animal went where he could get the best thistles and thorns.

Evidently Jeremiah did not need water. Vic could hear a great sloshing of bilge water below decks. Jeremiah’s water reserve pitched back and forth in his stomachs and occasionally some of it came bubbling up in his throat. He did not seem to worry about this in the least. No doubt he was proud of what he could do with water. He could store enough of it to last him for a week or ten days. He could store food as well, packing it in his humps in the form of fat. If the humps were high and hard, as Jeremiah’s were, it meant that the animal was well fed. At the end of a long journey of a month or so, with little food, a camel’s humps drooped like empty bags.

Finally Jeremiah remembered those delicious magazines. He turned about and went back to camp. Hal had the latest editions ready for him. This was a sort of dessert after the twigs, thorns and cactus. He gargled his thanks.

Vic slid down from his mount. Hal had some antiseptic ready for the bites on Vic’s shoulders. Vic complained, That dope hurts worse than the bites did.’

He went home to tell Jim and Harry how he had conquered the wild beast. They complimented him on his courage and skill.

Harry said, ‘I predict that the names Jeremiah and Vic Stone will go down in history. They will be remembered for all time.’

Vic said. That sounds good. Would you write it down.’

Harry wrote it and gave it to Vic

Vic said. ‘I’ll frame it.’

‘We were told to get a wild boar. Let’s hunt for one today.’

‘What are wild boars like?’ Roger asked.

They are very dangerous animals. A wild boar is a huge pig weighing six times as much as you. It has a very bad temper. You can’t depend upon it to be nice and polite. It hides in the bushes and when any other animal or man comes along it rushes out and kills.’

That doesn’t sound good. Can’t we just cross that off the list?’

‘Hardly. We were told to get it and we’ll get it.’

Hal was not aware that just outside the door Vic was listening.

How will we get him if he’s so savage?’ Roger asked.

‘I don’t know. Perhaps he’ll get us. We’ll take along the sleep-gun and a lasso and hope for the best.’

Vic went back to the barn-house and got his rifle.

‘Why the rifle?’ asked Jim. ‘You know shooting is forbidden.’

Vic laughed. ‘Nobody can tell me what to do or what not to do. The Hunts are going after a wild boar. If they find one they’re not going to get it, because I’ll shoot it first -just so they won’t succeed. They’re not going to get a wild boar today.’

‘Why don’t you let up on the Hunts? You’ll only get yourself in trouble.’

‘Me? I know what I’m doing. I’m good with a rifle.’

‘Are you? That’s news to me.’ said Jim. ‘I’ll get your bed ready.’

‘What’s this about a bed?’ Vic demanded.

‘I’ve a notion that you will need it before the day is over.’

Hal drove the truck to a place in the forest that he thought was just the sort a wild boar would love. There were many trees, but also much undergrowth - hundreds of bushes Where wild boar would like to hide until the moment came to charge upon any intruder.

Very carefully watching both right and left, the boys crept through the woods. Their nerves were taut. The great tusks of a boar might at any moment sink into the flesh of one of them. And when the beast had finished one boy, he would probably turn on the other.

The boys were not far from their cabin, but it seemed a million miles away. Would they ever get back to it?

Then they saw it - a huge beast with a long nose and savage teeth, two of which were too large to be contained in its mouth. They were the murdering tusks. The animal was turning up the ground hunting for juicy roots. Hal prepared to use his sleep-gun.

Before he could do so there was the crack of a rifle. Whoever had fired was not a very good shot. The bullet passed over the animal’s back, only scratching his skin.

Immediately the boar charged - not towards the Hunts, but towards Vic Stone who had dared to fire at the lord of the pig world. Vic yelled to high heaven as the long sharp tusks dug into his side. Then the boar, quite satisfied that he had killed his enemy, started to amble away.

Hal fired his sleep-gun. His aim was correct but the boar did not fall at once. Instead, he glared about, trying to see where that tickle in his flank had come from.

He saw nothing but a viper. The boar is not an animal of great intelligence. Perhaps this snake was the cause of his trouble.

He seized the snake in the middle and started to eat it. The viper turned its head and stung him on the lips. Again and again it attacked him. The terribly poisonous snake was conquering the great beast. The wild boar sank down and died. His death had not been caused by the sleep-gun, nor even by the rifle.

But Vic, suffering from his wounds, took the credit. He and his trusty rifle had killed that monster - so he thought.

He staggered to his feet. He had to get home quickly and lie down. He could hardly walk.

Take him home on the truck,’ Hal said to Roger. Roger did so.

Jim was not surprised to see the great gunman limp in and fall on his bed. He stripped off the fool’s clothes and did what he could to stop the bleeding from two holes in Vic’s side.

‘I was waiting for you.’ Jim said, ‘But I didn’t expect you back so soon.’

‘It was all Hunt’s fault.’ Vic mumbled. ‘If he hadn’t gone after a wild boar I wouldn’t have been hurt.’

Roger drove back to find his brother in a new fight. Another boar, perhaps of the same family, had come running, only to be stopped by another snake. Hal was learning that this particular woodland was the home of many serpent. This one was not a viper. It was a twelve-foot-long boa constrictor. It resented being stepped upon by the big brute. It flung up its head over the neck of the boar and proceeded to coil itself all round the big body. But, unlike the viper, it did not sting.

‘What is it trying to do?’ Roger asked.

‘Well, it’s a constrictor. That means it’s a squeezer, not a poisoner. It will try to squeeze the boar so tightly that it can’t breathe. If we want that boar we have to move fast or he’ll die before we can get him home.’

Several men had now appeared from the nearest village. They had seen many strange things in their lives, but this was the first time they had seen a snake hugging a boar.

Hal said, ‘Help us carry this animal out and put him on the truck.’

‘But how are you going to get the snake off him?’

‘We’ll just leave it on until we get him in the cage - if he doesn’t die first because he can’t breathe.’

The men helped carry the beast and its wraparound snake and put it in the truck. Then they all hopped aboard because they wanted to see what would happen next.

Reaching home, they helped unload boar and boa and put them in a cage. Hal said, ‘We’ve got to get that snake off before it kills the boar.’