13 Tiger Adventure (2 page)

Then to dinner - and the first one to be served was the tiger.

Vic appeared. He and Hal stood watching the tiger enjoy his meal. It was certainly a fine animal.

‘How much do you think she weighs?’

‘It’s a he this time,’ Hal said. ‘I guess that he’d tip the scales at five hundred pounds.’

‘Hal,’ Vic said, ‘I want to apologise for last night. I don’t know what got into me. I’m really not that kind of a guy. That night in jail taught me a lesson that I’ll never forget. The fine - that was terrible. Now I’m busted, flat broke.’

Roger came out of the cabin and was surprised to see Vic. He had hoped never to set eyes on him again.

‘Flat broke,’ Vic repeated. ‘I was just wondering - I hate to ask - but I was thinking that you might lend me something. Just until I get a cheque from home. I’m expecting one any day now.’

Roger was shaking his head. He knew his brother. Hal was always willing to help. But surely he could see that this fellow was just trying to get something for nothing.

‘How much do you need?’ Hal said.

‘Oh, just a little. Say two hundred dollars?’

Roger shook his head a little harder.

Hal took out his wallet. ‘Rupees or dollars?’

‘Make it dollars. I don’t understand this rupee stuff.’

Hal shelled out two crisp hundred-dollar bills.

Thanks a lot,’ Vic said. ‘I’ll pay you back soon. The sergeant said good things about you. He made me see I was on the wrong track. Now I’d like to get on the right track. I thought perhaps I could help you to get the animals you need.’

‘Well, that’s nice of you,’ Hal said. This is a big job. I do need help. I’ll pay you fifty dollars for every wild animal you bring in.’

Roger shook his head harder than ever. His neck was getting tired.

‘Good,’ said Vic. ‘When do we start?’

‘Right away,’ Hal said. ‘But this afternoon you’ll have to work alone. Roger and I have to make this cage stronger if we want to keep the most powerful cat on earth. I see you have your rifle. Leave it in the cabin.’

‘But I might need it. You know - in an emergency.’

‘If you have a gun, you are likely to use it. Remember, the animal doesn’t have a gun. Roger, take his gun and put it inside. I’ll tell you what, Vic - I’ll lend you my lasso.’

That’s too easy,’ Vic protested. ‘Anybody can throw a rope. But it takes a man to shoot a gun.’

‘It’s the other way round,’ Hal said. ‘Anybody can pull a trigger. But it takes a bit of skill to throw a lasso. And the difference is that the gun gives you a dead animal, and the lasso gives you a live one.’

Vic, after grumbling a little more, set out with the lasso over his shoulder.

Then Roger spoke up. With the wisdom of a fourteen-year-old he scolded his brother five years older. ‘You dumb cluck! You’ll never see that two hundred again. And as for fifty dollars for every wild animal, a caterpillar is a wild animal, and you’ll have to pay him that if he brings one in.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Hal. ‘You’ve got to have more faith in human nature. Anyhow, what else could we do? The fine cleaned him out. He had to have something to live on. I’m guessing that he’s a city boy who has never had any experience in real hunting. He needs someone to teach him, and it seems that you and I will have to be the teachers.’

Hal was right. Vic was a city boy, and like every city boy he longed for adventure. His home was in Cleveland, Ohio, near Western Reserve-Case University. He was a college man if you can call a fellow who has spent only four months in college a college man. One term at university was enough for him. He preferred to roam around Wake Park Lake across the road from the college and to follow a stream through the woods up to the lovely lakes of Shaker Heights. But even this was not enough. He wanted to see the world. So, one night, he helped himself to his father’s money with the excuse that it would have cost M$ father a lot of money to keep him in college, so why not take it and spend it on something even more educational - travel. He left a note saying that if his father had the urge to give him more money it could be sent to him care of the American Embassy in New Delhi, capital of India.

Then lie walked out, hitch-hiked his way to New York and stowed away in a lifeboat on a freighter bound for Calcutta. His Indian ramblings led him finally to the Gir Forest where he bought a rifle and fancied himself as a great hunter like Jim Corbett or Ernest Hemingway. And here he was, armed with nothing but a silly rope.

Vic, wandering through the forest, thinking about the meanness of Hal who gave him only two hundred dollars and offered only fifty dollars for every wild animal he brought in, nearly bumped into the largest and shyest deer in India. He didn’t know it was the famous sambar that makes its home on the mountainside four thousand to fourteen thousand feet up, but comes down at times to enjoy the shade of the Gir Forest.

He saw that the animal had sharply pointed horns. The skin was a dark, smoky brown. The throat was covered with bristles and the tail was long.

Now, if he only had his gun. He tried to lasso but the animal was already moving away and the rope merely slapped him on the back and fell off.

Now a chital joined the sambar - Vic knew the chital because he had just killed one the night before. The two deer turned and looked defiantly at their tormentor. Deer stick together, help each other out.

The sambar was as big as a horse and the chital as big as a pony. Then Vic saw a third deer, but this one was smaller than a rabbit. He was to learn later that it was called a mouse-deer. Vic didn’t know the correct name for it but he gave it a name, Tiny Tim.

Tiny Tim ran and got squarely between the chital and the sambar. The giant deer lowered its head and licked the hide of its little friend.

What an opportunity! Vic couldn’t possibly miss all of them. He threw his lasso, hoping it would snare the antlers of the giant or the chital. He didn’t care about Tiny Tim. ft was too small to matter.

The lasso caught on the branch of a tree. At once a growl came from the same tree. Looking up, Vic saw a snarling leopard. It leaped to the ground and glared at Vic who decided that this was the last moment of his life. Luckily the sambar sounded, The leopard turned and made for the three deer. The sambar and chital ran. Tiny Tim was not so quick. The grass around him was as high as he was and prevented him from moving fast.

The sambar looked back at the little fellow struggling among die grass blades. The giant, risking death in the claws of the leopard, ran back, picked up Tiny Tim in his jaws and joined the chital in a race for safety.

The leopard, although the greatest killer in the cat world, could not keep up with the deer. They left him far behind and Vic heard him a mile away roaring his anger because his quarry had escaped him.

Vic went back to the Hunt cabin. He told the boys about his bravery in facing three deer and a leopard.

‘Well, I don’t suppose you got the leopard,’ Hal said, ‘but it’s great that you brought home three deer. Did you put them in a cage?’

‘No,’ Vic admitted. ‘I didn’t bring back all three.’

‘1 suppose you got the two big ones.’

‘Not exactly.’

Too bad,’ Hal said, ‘but it’s great that you got the mouse-deer. It can’t go fast so it was easy to catch. It’s really the most important of the three. It’s unique and valuable because of its remarkably small size. So we must congratulate you on bringing home one of the most unusual deer in the world. Where did you put it, this Tiny Tim as you call it?’

1 couldn’t catch it.’

‘But it’s so easy to catch in the long grass and rocks. What was the trouble?’

The big fellow came back and carried it off.’

Neither Hal nor Roger could think of anything more to say.

It was getting dark, Vic went to his quarters nearby.

Roger was angry with Hal. He blamed Hal for taking on this stupid city bum.

As they entered the cabin Roger noticed something moving into a dark corner. It looked like a harmless garter snake. It was small, not more than four feet long.

‘Good,’ thought Roger. ‘I’ll give him a treat. I won’t do anything but scare him half to death.’

After Hal was in bed and asleep, Roger picked up the snake by the tail and slipped it into Hal’s bed. That suited the snake to a T. It snuggled up to Hal to get his warmth;

Hal woke, felt something squirming about on his ribs, let out a yell and threw the serpent out on the floor. Roger laughed till he ached.

‘You love animals so much, how about that one?’ he said.

Hal looked at the snake and his face went white.

‘You don’t need to worry,’ Roger said. ‘It’s not poisonous.’

‘Not poisonous!’ roared Hal. That’s a hooded cobra!’

Roger apologised. ‘Gee whiz, I didn’t know.’ He fully expected Hal to blow up and was astonished when his patient brother merely dropped the snake into a burlap bag and said:

That’s just fine. One of the chief things we were told to get - a hooded cobra! Thanks a lot for what you did, little brother. And if you ever do it again I’ll knock your head off.’

Early in the morning Roger, Hal and Vic went back to the spot where Vic had failed to capture the sambar, chital and mouse-deer. Perhaps the animals liked this place and would return to it.

The first thing Hal saw was a rope in a tree.

That must be my lasso. Why didn’t you bring it home,

Vic?’

Vk stared at the lasso as if he had never seen it before. 1 forgot it. Guess I was too excited. The leopard came down and I was afraid he was going to come after me.’

‘Well, there’s no leopard today, so you can rest easy. Listen. I believe they are coming. They like this place. Be very quiet so we won’t frighten them.’

The sambar led the way. The chital came next. Then Tiny Tim, the little mouse-deer, bunted his little head against the grasses and pushed his way in beside his friends.

Vic said, ‘Won’t they run when they see us?’

‘I don’t believe so,’ said Hal. ‘Deer are friends of man. They are like the dolphin and porpoise that swim along close to a ship because they like people. Deer don’t run from men unless they see guns.’

Hal pulled his lasso down out of the tree. He had a problem. If he snared the sambar, the other two would be alarmed and would run away. He wanted to get all three.

The animals solved the problem. Deer not only like humans, they like each other. The chital, being a little nervous, got as close to the sambar as possible and raised its head so that the two were cheek to cheek. Hal’s lasso came flying through the air and settled over both heads.

‘Wc should have brought the truck,’ Vic said.

Hal replied, ‘We don’t need it. Keep very quiet. Let them get used to the rope.’

It was very hard for Vic to stand still. He was very nervous. His heart was pounding away like a sledgehammer. He started to speak but Hal put his hand over Vic’s mouth. They stood so for fifteen minutes.

But how about the mouse-deer? It was still tangled in the long grass. It struggled on until it came up beside its big friends.

The boys stood as still as the trees around them.

Then Hal began to pull very gently on the rope. At first the two deer resisted. But the pull was so gentle that it could not mean any harm,’ They took a step forward, then another, and another. Soon they were walking slowly along without any sign of fear.

Roger picked up the mouse-deer and slipped it into a big pocket of his hunting jacket.

‘Good.’ said Hal. That little fellow is first prize. I’ll bet Dad can sell it for five hundred dollars. So far as I know, there isn’t a zoo anywhere that owns a mouse-deer. Any zoo that buys this will have crowds coming to see the smallest deer on the face of the earth.’

Five hundred dollars! It rang like a bell in Vic’s head. What couldn’t he do with five hundred dollars?

A bush ahead of them came alive. Part of the bush walked out. When had anyone ever seen a walking bush? But there it was, a bundle of twigs, ambling across the path.

The strange sight brought a yelp out of Nervous Nellie. That was the name that Hal and Roger had secretly given Vic. The bundle of twigs was about two feet long.

‘Keep away from it and it won’t hurt you,’ Hal said.

‘What is it?’ Nervous Nellie stammered.

‘A porcupine.’

The things that looked like twigs were the animal’s quills. They started at the back of the head and extended far back over the tail, ending in points as sharp as needles.

Vic, fearing the teeth of this beast, stepped to one side and came around directly behind the needles.

‘Oh no, not there,’ Hal cried. That’s the really dangerous end of him.’

‘You’re kidding me,’ Vic said. ‘I’m safe here.’

‘You’re not safe. Get out of the way before it charges.’

‘Who ever heard of an animal charging backwards? He can’t charge unless he turns around, head first.’

‘You’ve a lot to learn about porcupines. I’m telling you, get around in front of it.’

‘You think you can fool me,’ Vic stormed. ‘I’m safe here and here I’ll stay.’

Suddenly the porcupine rushed back with the speed of lightning and plunged its needles through Vic’s trousers and deep into his legs. He let out a yell that could have been heard a mile away.

The porcupine, well satisfied, disappeared into the bushes, leaving half a dozen of its spines in Vic’s flesh.

‘So,’ said Hal, ‘now you see I wasn’t fooling.’

Vic wailed, ‘Get these spikes out of me!’

‘lie down and I’ll try,’ said Hal. ‘But they are going to hurt a lot more coming out than when they went in.’

‘Why is that?’

‘Because every spine has a little hook at the end - like a fish hook. That will tear your flesh as it comes out. But we can’t leave them in. They’re not clean and the chances are they would give you gangrene, then a doctor might have to amputate both legs.’

This horrifying prospect did not do much to comfort Nervous Nellie.

‘Both legs!’ he cried. ‘Why did I ever come to this, country? There’s nothing here but murder and germs.’