13 Tiger Adventure (4 page)

‘What a beautiful animal,’ Roger said.

‘And as brave and strong as he is beautiful,’ Hal added. ‘Hunters say the leopard is the most handsome cat in all the Indian jungles.’

‘But he has a bad temper.’ said Roger.

‘I think we can take care of that when we get him in pleasant surroundings on Dad’s farm. And any zoo will be glad to give him the care such a beauty deserves.’

‘Okay,’ Roger said, ‘if we can just get him on a ship before

Vic steals him,’ Hal laughed. To make off with a leopard is not so easy as

to pick up a mouse-deer.’

It was a great day when they found a panda.

‘Look!’ said Roger. ‘Away up in that tree. What is it?’ Hal took out his binoculars and studied the strange ball of fur.

‘My boy,’ he said, ‘Columbus discovered America. And you have just discovered something that any zoo would give its eye-teeth to have. That’s a panda. Dad wanted one. But I never expected to be able to give him one.’

‘Okay,’ said Roger. ‘If it’s so great why don’t you go up and get it?’

‘I wouldn’t think of doing such a thing. You discovered it, my dear Columbus. You are entitled to the honour of bringing it down.’

Roger grinned. ‘How generous of you! What’s the reason you don’t want to touch it? Will it bite?’

‘You guessed it. The panda’s teeth are like razors.’ Hal pulled out some twine from his pocket. ‘Tie this around his jaws. Then he can’t hurt you - except with his claws.’ He saw that his brother was worried.

‘I was just kidding,’ Hal said. ‘You stay here safe and sound and I’ll go up and get it.’

‘Not on your life,’ said Roger. ‘I saw it. I’ll bring it down.’

Hal was pleased. He wanted to train his young brother to face danger. That would not be difficult. Roger had a lot of Hunt courage.

He climbed the tree. The panda was rolled up, sound asleep. Roger tied the mouth shut. He didn’t know what to do about those long sharp claws on all four feet. Just have to take a chance.

He started down with the heavy animal in his arm. That left only one arm to clutch the branches. What if the beast woke up? It would struggle and fight and cut with its four sets of razors.

Then he noticed that the creature’s eyes were wide open. The panda was already awake. But it was as quiet during this jolting trip as if it were being rocked in a cradle.

Most animals would have screamed and struggled. But this one didn’t know anything about men. It didn’t know how cruel men could be.

But it pat up one foot and pulled the twine from its jaws. Still it did not bite. It was an instant friendship between boy and beast.

Roger and his burden reached the ground safely. Hal was amazed.

friendly little fellow,’ he said.

‘Not so little. He nearly broke my arm.’

‘Well, you were lucky that he wasn’t full-grown. When he grows up he will weigh more than a hundred pounds. What a beautiful red overcoat he is wearing. He needs that, because his homeland is about twelve thousand feet up the mountain. He comes down to eat bamboo shoots.’

‘Doesn’t he eat anything else?’

‘Yes. For dessert he fancies insects, wasps, bees, hornets, and he kills them so quickly between those sharp teeth that they don’t have a chance to sting him.’

‘I’m going to call him Pan,’ said Roger.

Hal lifted one of Pan’s front feet.

‘See. It’s almost a hand, not a foot. Hardly any animal except the monkey has a thumb. This panda can pick up anything between his thumb and what serves as fingers, Try picking something up without using your thumb. You do much better with a thumb. Put him down.’

‘He’ll run away.’

‘No, I don’t think so. He likes you.’

Placed on the ground, Pan looked about as if deciding what to do, then climbed up Roger’s trouser-leg into his arms.

And so he rode home. He was not put in a cage. He was allowed to run free inside the cabin or out.

His life consisted of eating and playing.

‘He’s a clown,’ Hal said. You remember the clowns in the circus? Well, Pan is the clown of the animal world.’

Pan the clown was full of tricks. News of his arrival at the Hunt camp soon got around and people came from near and far to see him perform.

Pan was part bear, part raccoon. Like a raccoon, he was clever. Like a bear, he could do all sorts of stunts. The difference was that a bear has to be trained to do stunts, but the panda could do them naturally without being trained.

Pan’s first adventure was to climb up on top of the leopard’s cage. That annoyed the beautiful cat. When a leopard is angry it raises its tail as straight as a mast.

The tip of the tail stuck out through the wire and Pan gave it a good yank. What a roar he got out of the bad-tempered beauty.

Now Pan jumped over on top of the cage that held the King of Beasts. The tiger was so large that the tip of his tail was within reach. Pan tweaked it. The tiger did not roar. His purr was as loud as the sound a dozen house cats would make all purring together.

Hal took a chance. He opened the door of the cage just wide enough for Pan to squeeze in. What would the tiger do?

Tigers eat living animals of any size, as small as a rat or as big as a sambar. But the tiger had just been fed and he enjoyed the cute antics of his roly-poly visitor. He licked the furry bear-raccoon as if Pan were one of his own cubs.

Take him out,’ someone yelled. ‘He’ll be killed.’

But the greatest of cats was not in a killing mood. He let Pan climb up on his back. He didn’t mind when Pan playfully pulled his ears.

The clown took a walk along the tiger’s back from one end to the other. The tiger seemed delighted to have company.

But the clown had other business. He jumped down and went to the door. Hal let him out.

The clown at once introduced himself to an old headman with long whiskers who was wearing a hat. Pan grabbed the hat and put it on his own head.

Then he hopped over on to a woman’s head, tore off the wig she was wearing and put it on top of his hat.

It was the raccoon in him that made him do such things. The raccoon is as mischievous as a monkey, and as clever as a fox. And Pan had these same qualities.

He cavorted around much as a clown does in a circus. He was having a remarkably good time.

Hal brought out a bowl of soup and a spoon. He showed Pan how to use the spoon. Then he passed it to the animal. The clown was a little bewildered. Pandas don’t take soup and they don’t use spoons.

But Pan was not easily defeated. He took the spoon, dipped it into the soup, then took it out upside down and tried to get it into his mouth.

The result was that he did not get much soup but, he did get a lot of laughter from the crowd.

‘Now I’ll give him what he really likes.’ Hal said.

He crumbled some bamboo into small bits and offered them to Pan.

The clown showed Hal just how a panda eats bamboo, his favourite food. He lay on his back and scooped the bamboo bits on to his chest. Then he took up each bit in his front paws that looked so much like hands and he began chewing the hard chunks of bamboo. The crowd looked with astonishment at an animal eating wood. But thanks to sharp incisors and powerful molars Pan made short work of chewing and swallowing the bamboo. Then he rolled up and went to sleep.

Hal saw to it that the old headman got his hat and the woman her wig.

‘Great show,’ they said.

‘Don’t thank me,’ said Hal. ‘It’s Roger who got the panda.’

So Roger was thanked by everyone and the guests, still laughing at the performance of the raccoon-bear, went home much pleased with themselves, Roger, and the panda.

Vic thought he was a fine-looking fellow and wanted Hal to take his picture half a dozen times a day.

‘I want a picture of me on an elephant,’ he said. The three boys were in a timber-yard of the Abu Singh Teak Company. They had been watching an elephant pick up a log as long as a telegraph pole, rest it on his tusks, hold it in place with his trunk, carry it across the yard and place it carefully on a pile of logs.

There it would stay until some shipbuilder wanted to build a vessel’s hull out of wood that would last a lifetime without decay.

Teak was not very well known in Western countries but it grew well in India up to altitudes of three thousand feet. The trunks made logs that were floated several miles downstream to the timber-yard. The wood was regarded by the Indians as the finest in the world, even better than mahogany.

When the elephant had done his job Vic said, ‘Make him lie down. Then I can get on his back.’

‘But he’s not a riding elephant,’ the mahout objected. ‘He knows what to do with logs but he’s never had a stranger on his back.’

‘Okay,’ said Vic ‘then this will be the first time. I’ll teach him.’

The mahout brought the animal to earth. Vic climbed up on to the broad back.

‘Shall I take the picture now?’ Hal asked.

‘Of course not. I’m not going to have my picture taken on a lying-down elephant. Make him stand up.’

When the elephant stood the picture was taken.

The click of the camera and the strange feeling of something heavy on his back was more than the elephant could stand. He whirled about, shot out of the timber-yard and raced down the street.

An elephant in motion puts down two feet on one side, then the two feet on the other side, and this makes him roll back and forth. When there’s no saddle, the rider has a hard time sticking on.

Vic hung on to the rubbery edges of the two ears and wished he had never tried to ride this wobbly beast.

The mahout, yelling at the top of his lungs, came running’ after them but could not catch up. Vic rolled about like a peanut on the hurricane deck of this ship of the jungle and expected to be shaken loose at any moment.

The elephant was not accustomed to traffic and took the wrong side of the street. Presently a Ford came straight towards him, honking as if the driver really thought that this mountain of flesh would move out of his way. When it did not, he saved himself and his car at the last moment by plunging through a fence, across a garden, and into a bamboo home. The screams of the people in the house followed Vic and his mount.

And now came a rickshaw, fortunately empty. With one touch of his trunk the elephant flicked it into the gutter, the rickshaw coolie still cooped between the shafts.

The elephant’s trunk was making mad circles in the air. Sometimes it was flung back in Vic’s direction like the tentacle of an octopus. How far back could an elephant reach with his trunk? Elephants could shower their own backs. Vic wondered if he would suddenly be picked off and flung into someone’s second-storey window.

They arrived at a busy cross-street. In the middle of the crossing was a policeman on a traffic platform operating a stop sign.

But the elephant, though very clever with logs, was not clever enough to read. He surged straight on, with cars rickshaws and gharries scattering out of the way in a panic.

The policeman roared and the general public screamed.

Now the wild beast was carrying Vic alongside a river. But this was hot work, and the elephant decided to take a bath.

First it was only five feet deep and Vic did not worry. But it became deeper and deeper and finally the elephant’s back disappeared under water and Vic was soaked to the skin.

The elephant had one advantage over Vic. The animal, though under water, could raise the tip of his trunk above water and thus breathe easily. Vic did not have the same equipment. He could keep his head above water only by standing up on the elephant’s back.

Hal and Roger came running along the bank.

‘Look out!’ Hal yelled. ‘You’ll drown. Swim to the shore.’

‘I can’t swim,’ came from the miserable Vic.

Just in time, the elephant solved that problem. He came up on shore. Both he and his rider were completely covered with a coat of mud which the elephant’s feet had churned up from the bottom of the river.

Hal and Roger ran to help Vic down. Before they could do so the elephant decided to clean the mud off his hide. He threw his trunk back and vigorously sprayed water not only over himself but over the three boys. Vic slid down and joined the other two. They were a pretty sad sight as they stood there, dripping muddy water from their hair, faces and clothes.

But the worst was yet to come. Because insects were stinging him, the elephant scooped up sand and covered himself with it as protection against these little pests. Of course the boys got their full share of the sand in their hair, on their faces and all over their clothing. Now they looked worse than ever.

The mahout had arrived. He could hardly recognise these three disgraceful tramps.

The elephant had quietened down now that there was no one on his back and his mahout was there to take care of aim. They all returned to the timber-yard.

That will be a hundred rupees,’ said the mahout.

Hal was surprised. ‘For what?’ he said.

‘For the ride.’

‘But nobody wanted to ride,’ objected Hal.

‘But your friend did ride.’

Rather than continue the argument, Hal paid one hundred rupees. Then he said, ‘Now, what are you going to pay us for all the trouble your elephant gave us? He could have killed my friend. He went wild and you had no control over him. Our clothes are spoiled, perhaps ruined.’

The mahout laughed. That’s just your bad luck,’ he said.

‘Let me see how much you should pay us,’ Hal said. ‘I think that one hundred rupees would be just about right.’

‘You’ll never get it out of me,’ said the mahout.

That’s all right,’ Hal said, looking at the sign ‘Abu Singh Teak Company’, ‘we’ll just report all this to your boss, Abu Singh.’

The mahout was no longer laughing. ‘Oh don’t do that, please. He would fire me. Here’s your hundred rupees.’

He passed back the money to Hal and the three boys went home.

‘He wasn’t such a bad fellow after all,’ Roger said. ‘And he spoke our language pretty well. I’m surprised that so many people in India speak English.’