13 Tiger Adventure (7 page)

‘What zoo?’

The headman was telling me there are a dozen zoos right here in India. And others next door in Burma and Singapore. Japan is the big money country now. They would probably pay not one thousand dollars but five thousand at the Tokyo Zoo. What do you say? Are you with me?’

His friends were a little uncertain but such money sounded good.

‘I’m with you,’ Jim said.

‘Me too;’ said Harry.

The tiger is the ‘King of Beasts’ - bigger, heavier, stronger than any other member of the cat family.

But the lion is also called the ‘King of Beasts’ and honoured for his enormous power.

The two kings are widely separated. There are lions in Africa but no tigers. There are tigers in India, but no lions.

Except in the Gir Forest. Once upon a time, there were three thousand lions in the Gir Forest. Hunters have killed most of them and when the boys came there were only a hundred and seventy left according to the count of the Forest Patrol.

Dad wanted a Gir lion - not to kill, but to place in a zoo where it would be protected from killers. People would come from near and far to see it.

But Hal and Roger had almost given up their search for a Gir lion. The lions were hiding deep in the forest where there was no road, no path, no trail.

Luckily, the boys discovered them. They peered at them through the bushes. They saw a family or ‘pride’ of twelve lions, grandpa, grandma, pa and ma, aunts and uncles, young ones full of mischief, and babies just born.

There was no fighting here. Lions like each other. Grandpa was going about, rubbing up against every member of the pride as if to say, ‘Good morning, my dear’ - only he said it with a sort of growling purr.

All except the babies had hunted food all night, and now everyone was well fed, happy together, and ready to sleep all day - then up and out at sunset to find more food.

‘What a lovely family!’ Hal whispered.

They’ll probably all be killed by the guns,’ Roger whispered.

‘At least we can save one of them,’ replied Hal.

‘Which one?’

‘How about the mother and the little one that is snuggling up against her?’

‘But there are two babies.’

‘Yes, but haven’t you ever heard about aunties? It’s lion custom for the aunties to take care of the youngster when the mother is away. Don’t worry about the little fellow. Auntie Gir will look after him.’

‘See - they’re all going to sleep.’

‘Yes, this is their time for sleep. But that cub is wide awake. Look - he’s coming this way. If you can grab him, we’ll have his mother.’

‘How come?’

The mother lion will follow her baby. I’ll noose the mother with this lasso just to be sure she won’t run away. But it’s really the cub, not the lasso, that is going to capture our Gir lion.’

The lioness was standing now, looking after her wandering cub. She walked slowly away from the sleeping family.

Hal flung the lasso. It noosed the lioness, but she was too much concerned for her young one to notice.

Roger expected her to roar when he picked up the cub. But Gir lions seldom roar. They have learned from sad experience that a roar tells the man with a gun just where he can find the lion. The Gir lion’s only safety lies in silence.

‘Carry the cub to the truck,’ Hal said, ‘Go very slowly. If you get the lioness running she may jerk the rope out of my hands.’

He wrapped the end of the rope round a tree to prevent the animal from breaking into a run. Then to the next tree -and the next. So, tree by tree, they approached the truck.

Coming out on the road where the truck stood, Roger put the cub in the cage that had been brought along for the animal they expected to get.

The lioness leaped lightly into the truck and entered the cage. She made a soothing, snuffling sound over her cub, trying to comfort it, and to tell it that no matter what happened, it would not lose its mother.

Roger closed the cage door. ‘I have some biscuits in my pocket,’ he said. ‘Shall I drop some of them into the cage?’

‘No. The cub is too young for solid food. Its mother is giving it some milk. A couple of months from now we can start giving it meat.’

Several times before this Hal had used this method of getting a great beast into a cage. It had all been done without worrying either animal in the least. Some ‘take-‘emalive’ men use more brutal methods. They force the animal along by beating it, prodding it with sharp sticks, shouting at the top of their lungs to terrify it, and shooting into the air to paralyse the animal with fear.

But in Hal’s way of doing it, there was no beating, no prodding, nothing whatever to cause fear. There was only love - the mother cat’s love had made her follow her young

They drove home. On the way, Roger had some questions to ask.

This lion doesn’t look a bit like the ones we saw in Africa. Why is that?’

‘Lions differ according to the country they are in. Much of East Africa is six thousand feet above sea level. So it is quite cold all the year round. The Gir Forest is only about a hundred feet above sea level. It is very hot here most of the year. The African lions have heavy coats to keep out the cold. Lions in the hot country wear light coats. Nature is pretty clever. She tries to make animals comfortable no matter where they live.’

They’re different all over,’ Roger said. These lions are fatter. Their heads are longer. Their legs look different, and their tails.’

They have an easier life than the African lions.’

‘Do the lions and tigers fight each other?’

‘No, they get along beautifully together. They seem to regard each other as cousins, not enemies. They really are cousins, you know. Their hides are quite different, but if you undress the tiger and the lion by removing their hides, you find that their bodies are exactly alike - the same organs, exactly the same bone structure. Even an expert can’t tell which is the tiger and which is the lion. Only their skins are different - one plain, and the other striped.’

‘But in the Bronx Zoo in New York, I saw a lion with stripes.’

Hal laughed. ‘Yes, that could happen. If a young animal has a lion for a mother and a tiger for a father, the youngster will be a tiger-lion. Such a crossbreed is called tigon. ‘Tig’ for tiger and ‘on’ for lion. Or a liger, ‘H’ for lion and ‘ger’ for tiger.’

That must have been what I saw - a liger.’

Reaching home, they took the lioness and her cub out of the small cage and put them into the great cage already inhabited by the tiger.

‘Is it safe?’ Roger asked. They might kill each other.’

‘Look at them,’ Hal said. ‘Now the two big ones are sniffing at each other, nose to nose. They are friends already. I’m sure the tiger is glad to have company.’

Roger brought some meat and put it into the cage. The tiger looked at it and the lion looked at it. Each politely waited for the other to eat. Finally they settled down to dinner, the lion nibbling at one end of the meat, the tiger at the other.

Hal and Roger walked to their cabin. Near the cabin was the cage of Big Fella, the elephant. The cage was empty. The elephant was nowhere to be seen.

‘He’s walked out on us!’ exclaimed Roger. ‘He seemed to like me - I never dreamed he’d up and leave me.’

‘No,’ Hal said, ‘he wouldn’t do that. Besides, he couldn’t open that door even with the thing that looks like a finger at the end of his trunk.’

‘So what?’ Roger wondered.

‘Somebody opened that door. Somebody forced him to come out and took him away. But who?’

For the answer to that, we shall have to look at what happened while the boys were away.

The three crooks lived in a barn that was not a barn. It once was a place for hay and horses, but now it had been converted into a sort of cabin for visitors.

They’ve gone,’ said Vic. ‘Now’s our chance to get that thousand-dollar bundle. Perhaps five thousand in the Tokyo Zoo. Come on. Let’s get Big Fella.’

They walked to the cage and opened it. The elephant was not as quiet as a lion. He let out a high, shrill scream like the whistle of a fire-engine.

There now, don’t get excited. No use hollering. Your boy friend is too far away to hear you,’ Vic said.

He took hold of the end of the elephant’s trunk. Big Fella jerked his trunk away. Then he picked up this rascal and threw him into a thorn bush twenty feet off. This bush is famous for its three-inch thorns, each one as sharp as a needle, ft is called Wait-a-Bit because once you get into it you are held by the thorns and must wait quite a long bit before you can get free.

Now Jim took his turn with the elephant. He kept away from the trunk and went around behind the beast. He twisted the tail of the monster. He didn’t know an elephant could kick, but he found out when he was plastered against the back wall of the cage.

It was Harry’s turn. He gave the screaming beast a resounding whack with a stick he had picked up outside. A huge foot knocked him down and held him down on the floor. If the elephant had rested all the weight of his heavy body upon the foot, Harry would have become a pancake. But, after all, Big Fella was not a killer. He lifted his foot and Harry made for the door holding his stomach.

Now the three took hold of the trunk and pulled. An elephant’s trunk is sensitive and the pull hurt. Big Fella began to move. They walked him out of the cage and down the road to their barn-house.

‘What’ll we do with him now?’ inquired Jim. We’ve got to hide him somewhere. If we tie him to a tree he’ll be found. Or else he’ll pull the tree down and escape.’

Harry, still nursing his injuries, had no suggestion.

Vic said, There’s only one thing we can do. Take him into our house.’

‘An elephant - in the house? You can’t do that,’ Jim said.

‘We can, and we must.’

‘But we couldn’t get him through the door.’

‘Of course we could. It’s a barn door twelve feet high. He’s only nine feet.’

So they opened the door and took their guest with them into his new home.

Then they let go of his trunk and he immediately swung it to knock all three of them down on the floor. With a scream of rage he crashed into the wall which, since this was only a barn after all, was made of boards. The boards broke, the splinters flew, the angry beast plunged through, ambled down the road muttering deep in his throat, and Hal and Roger who had just arrived saw him return to his cage. Then he saw Roger and as the boy came to him, Big Fella put his trunk round him and whispered little grunts and wheezes that said he was glad to be home.

‘Now I know who,’ said Hal. Those three crooks. But why in the world did they want that elephant?’

Someone was pounding at the door of the barn-house.

Vic opened the door. He faced a very angry-looking Indian. He owned the place and had rented it to the boys.

‘1 noticed that you have a great big hole in the wall. How did you manage to make that?’

‘We didn’t make it,’ Vic said. The elephant belonging to the Hunts did it.’

Then the Hunts will have to pay for it.’

That’s right. You go and see the Hunts. They’re always causing trouble. You make them come and repair that hole. I hope it costs them a lot.’

There’s just one thing I don’t understand,’ said the landlord. ‘All the broken pieces and chips are on the outside. If the elephant broke in there all that stuff would be inside, not outside.’

‘It was inside,’ said Vic, ‘but we threw it all outside. We didn’t want that mess in our living-room.’

‘You did the right thing,’ said the landlord. ‘How did you get the elephant out?’

Through the door.’

‘I see his muddy footprints on the floor.’ The landlord examined the prints carefully. Then he looked suspiciously at the boys. ‘You can’t fool me. Those prints show that the elephant was not going from the hole to the door. Instead, he was going from the door to the hole. You must have brought that elephant in through the door. Into my house. For some reason you wanted to hide him.’ He wagged his head back and forth as he figured out what must have happened. ‘You stole him from the Hunts. You brought him in here so no one could see what you had done. The elephant didn’t break in, he broke out. So you are responsible. Repairs will cost you one thousand rupees. And since you tried to fool me, I’ll just tack another thousand on to that. I’ll thank you for two thousand rupees.’

Vic wished he had told the truth. It would have cost less. Lying can be quite expensive.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Don’t you worry - we’ll pay you. You’ll have to wait a little while. We have no money, but some will be coming in, if you will just be patient.’

The boys looked so unhappy that the landlord decided to go easy with them.

‘I don’t think you fellows are very clever. But perhaps you are clever enough to hammer a few boards over that hole. All you have to do is buy the boards - they won’t cost much. That would be better than waiting for you to pay me two thousand rupees - I don’t believe I’d ever get it. Fix it yourselves. If you don’t, perhaps the police can persuade you.’

The boys didn’t like that word, ‘police’. Besides, the cold wind blowing in through that elephant-size hole was not too comfortable. So they accepted the landlord’s kind suggestion.

‘Next week we’ll do it,’ Vic said. It would never have occurred to Vic to do what needed to be done this week, this day, instead of putting it off until a later time.

He blamed the Hunts. If they hadn’t acquired that elephant the three crooks would not have been able to steal ft. So the Hunts were to blame for the whole thing.

The three boys drove their Land-Rover down to the Hunt camp. Vic went into the cabin and got one of Hal’s lassos. He tied one end to the car. Then they went quietly, very cautiously, to the cage that housed the tiger, the lion and cub.

Luckily, die lion’s head was near the door. Opening the door just a little, Vic slipped the noose of the lasso over the Ben’s head.

Then they leaped into the car and started it. The lion was pulled out of the cage. She might have roared her displeasure, but she had learned not to roar. The little cub did the roaring but it was only a little squeak. The tiger thundered.