“He must have escaped from captivity.”
“That’s the first thought that struck me when I steadied my brain pan. Thinks I, he b’longed to some man, an’ I looked at his waist for signs of the chain, but there were no sign. I noticed he looked empty, an’, remembering how he’d saved me by leading the tiger off another way, I got out a mealie cob. He snatched it quick, raised his eyebrows at me, then begun to eat as ef he’d been hungry for a week. There we sot – he one side, eating, me t’other, smoking. All o’ a sudden he quit eating: then he stood up on his hind legs an’ looked outer the winder. ‘Wot’s up now?’ sezs I to myself. There he stood looking outer that window; then he gave a jump into the rafters, crowding hisself under the slope. It gave me a sort o’ creepy crawl to see him do that, an’ I took down the ole gun. Bymby I yeard a sniff under the crack of the door as if a dog were taking a smell. Then there were a space o’ stillness that was terrible trying. I stood there looking at the door, ’xpecting to see it fly open, when I chanced to give a glance at the winder, and my blood froze.”
“What did you see?”
“What did I see? A pair o’ green eyes fixed on me. Then the gleam o’ white teeth an’ a sort o’ dim outline o’ a big round head. I let out a yell, an’ fired. If you look you’ll see where the winder’s smashed.”
“The tiger had tracked the baboon?”
“Very like ’twas jes’ that.”
“And then?”
“Then I jes’ jumped inter the pantry an shut myself in till daybreak.”
“Yes, Uncle Abe; and what happened then?”
“I jes’ opened the door gently, an’ looked out.”
“Well?”
“Well! The door were open. I yeerd the cracking o’ the fire an’ the humming o’ the kettle.”
“Someone had called?”
“Perhaps so; perhaps not. ’Tany rate the fire were lit. And when I looked out the front door there were the old man baboon plucking the feathers from the grey hen.”
“Humph!”
“Yes. An’ when he done plucking he popped the old fowl inter the pot.”
“Ha! I suppose the tiger was lying dead?”
“Who – the tiger? Not he. The darned critter pulled the plug outer the water barrel, then turned the barrel over an’ let all the water out. Arter that he pulled the roof offun my shed.”
“I don’t see the baboon around.”
“He ain’t around. Arter breakfast he went. When I come to think o’ it, he took the road to your place, an’ it’s my b’lief, sonny, he’s on the spoor o’ the same tiger.”
“And you won’t come over, then?”
“I’m waitin’ for that ole man baboon to come back. If he comes back an’ finds me gone I reckon he’d be disappointed. I tell yer I’d be mighty keerful how you treat that tiger.”
“Everything happened as you have related, Uncle Abe?”
“That’s so, sonny.”
“How did the baboon light the fire?”
“He jes’ used the bellers, I ’xpect, used the beller, an’ puffed the embers. Tell me how yer get on. Sorry I can’t go; but I dasn’t. So long!”
Chapter Four
Abe Pike and the Whip
I don’t know what degree of truth there was in old Abe’s account of his adventure with the black tiger, but I certainly learnt to my cost that whether the brute had or had not given a domicile to a witch-doctor, it was too cunning for any efforts on my part to get even with it for the heavy toll it levied on the young cattle. I was driven once more to seek out his assistance, but I thought I would get him over to the homestead on some other pretext, being firmly persuaded that once he was there his hunting instincts would lead him on the tiger’s spoor. One afternoon, therefore, I drove over in the “spider,” and found him busily engaged waxing a stout fishing line for “kabblejauw,” a very large, but coarse sea fish, which loved to venture up the Fish River with the tide.
“Holloa, sonny!” he cried; “climb out an’ make yerself at home. Got any baccy?”
I stepped out, and handed him a cake of golden leaf, which he just smelt, then turned over and over.
“Sugar stuff,” he growled, with a queer look of disgust, wrinkling up his nose.
“Good American leaf, Uncle.”
“Well, well; what’s the race comin’ to? Sugar – all sugar. Sugar with tea, sugar with coffee, so that the spoon stands up; sugar with pumkins, sugar with grog, sugar with baccy, until the stummick which nature gives us revolts an’ cries out for salt an’ the bitterness o’ wholesome plants. Bitterness ’ardens, my boy – bitterness in food, bitterness in life – an’ sugar softens. Jes’ you hole on to that as you plough the furrer thro’ the ups an’ downs o’ your caryeer.” He cut a slice from the cake and stowed it away in his cheek. “Well! ha’ yer cotched that tiger yet?”
“He’s prowling around yet, Uncle.”
“Soh! An’ you want ole Abe Pike to settle ’im, eh! – but ’taint no use.”
“I want you to ‘ride’ a load of wood to the house. The ‘boys’ have gone off to a beer dance, and I’m short-handed. The wood is cut and shaped.”
“But I’m goin’ a fishin’. Lemme see. It’s full moon next week. Well I’ll come along.”
He coiled up his line, stowed it away in his skin bag, locked his door, and climbed in. Next morning the old chap went off with the wagon for the wood, and returned late at night. He had a peculiar way of humming to himself whenever he was pleased, and I caught the sound as he came in through the kitchen to the dining-room, where the evening meal was on the table. With a nod to me, he sat down to a hearty meal, then, filling his pipe, he leant back and laughed silently.
“Seen anything, Uncle?”
“I don’t know that I have seed anythin’ outer the common, but I’ve learnt somethin’ that’s given me a better understandin’ o’ the spread o’ kindness overlaying things.”
“What was that?”
“You know where the wood were stacked?”
I knew the place very well, for that brute of a tiger had killed a foal there only two days before, and I had directed Abe there in the hope that he would drop across its tracks.
The old man, still chuckling, went out of the room and returned with a long bamboo whip-stick, deprived, however, of the twenty-foot thong made from buffalo hide.
“What’s become of the thong?” I cried.
“That’s it. It’s on account of the missin’ thong that I’m telling you o’ this remarkable cirkumst’nce. There’s a clump o’ trees ’long side the path ’way over yonder, where the wood were stacked, an’ the thong flew off in the dusk o’ the evening thereabouts. You see there were a stick fas’, and when I lammed into the oxen that ere thong flew off – whizz! – whang! – into the dark o’ the trees. I lay the stick down an’ searched fer it up an’ down, in an’ out – the oxen standin’ there knockin’ their horns, an’ the stars poppin’ out. Well, I guv it up, an’ picked up the stick, an’ the thong came through my fingers.”
“You said the thong flew off.”
“So