Part 33 (1/2)
”Unless he stole trained zebras froov'ment farm at Naivasha,”
said Brown, ”an' they're difficulter to ride 'an a greasy pole up-ended on a earthquake, he ht mules from the one man who has any to sell And he lives t'other side o' Nairobi There are none between there and here--none whatever Zachariah Korn--hiht 'em, you take it froain”
”Then he bought theschen's,” said I
”Or the Sultan of Zanzibar's” said Will, ”or the Gerovernment's”
”But why? Why should she, or they, conspire at great expense and risk to steal Brown's cattle?”
”They'll figure,” said Will, ”that Brown is helping us, and therefore, Brown is an eneue with us to show us a short cut to e're after If that's how they work it out, then they wouldn't need thinkBrown on the blink would hoodoo us Maybe they allow that that in ould unsettle Brown's friendly feelings for us
Anyway--soht the mules--somebody stole the cattle--cattle are somewhere ahead Let's hurry forward and see!”
We did hurry, but ly poor time Once a dozen buffalo stampeded our tiny coluest old bull mistook our only tent for our captain's dead body and proceeded to play ball with it, tossing it and tearing it to pieces until at last Will got a chance for a shoulder shot and drilled hi in the ot both of them Then the rest trotted off; so we packed the horns of the dead ones on the head of our free porter (for the tent he had carried was now utterly no use) and hastened on
Once, in trying to make a cut that should have saved us ten or fifteenand only escaped after an hour's struggle during which we all but lost two porters We had to retrace our steps and follow the Greek's route, only to have theover the top of a rise not eight miles behind us
Determined not to be overtaken by him a second time and treated to advice about nurseht, and nearly got drowned at the second river
We found a native ned a thing he called a i--a near-canoe, burned out of a tree-trunk He assured us the ford was very winding (he dreiggly finger-mark in the mud by way of illustration) but that his boat would hold twice our number, and that he could take us over easily in the dark In fact he swore he had ferried twice our nuhts more than twenty or thirty times He also said that he had taken the cattle over by the ford early that , and then had crossed over in the boat with two Greeks and a bwana Goa
He showed us the brass wire and beads they gave hian to put some faith in his tale
So we all piled into his crazy boat with our belongings, and he prorass-papyrus mostly--that divided the river into narrow streary mosquitoes in the world Our faces and hands ith blood in less than twobottorass disappeared, and a ripple on the water lipping dangerously within three inches of our uneven gunwale proved that ere more or less in the main stream We had enjoyed that sensation for about a minute, and were headed tohere we supposed the opposite bank must be, when a hippo in a hurry to breathe blew just beside us--saw, sain
I suppose in order to get his head down fast enough he shoved his rureat fat back e abruptly
Our three inches of broadside vanished The canoe rocked violently, filled, turned over, and floated wrong side up
”All the sa dirty water, ”here's where the crocks get fooled! They don't eat me for supper!”
He was first on top of the overturned boat, and dragged ether we hauled up Broho could not swim but was bombastically furious and unafraid; and the three of us pulled out the porters and the fatuous boat's owner The pole was floating near by, and I swaed me back on to the wreck the h mist and papyrus
The boat floated farside up, perhaps because we had lashed all our loads in place and they acted as ballast Will took the pole and acted the part of Charon, our proper pilot contenting hi the ill-fortune noisily until Kazimoto struck him and threatened to throw him back into the water
”They don't want a fool like you in the other world,” he assured hie!”
The papyrus inshore was high enough to screen the h it in pitch darkness Then, having found the muddy bank at last (andthe overturned boat out high and dry to rescue our belongings
And that was ticklish work, because est ones, spend the night alongshore
Matches et We had no hten the monsters away We simply had to ”chance it” as cheerfully and swiftly as we could, and at the end of a half-hour's sliround and settled down there for the night
It would be eration to say we ca suicidal--bitten by insects until the blood ran down froht be)--at the ht discover us (for our rifle locks were fouled with
When the sun rose we found a village less than four hundred yards away and sent the boys down to it to unpack the loads and spread everything in the sun to dry, while ent down to the river again and washed our rifles Then we dried and oiled theain or explanation, invaded the cleanest looking hut, lay down on the sta, that hut It housed more myraids of fleas than the air outside supported ”skeeters”; but we slept, unconscious of them all