Evening Star Newspaper, September 6, 1931, Page 46

he. Coward Becomes A Hero ° A Test of Real Courage When Faced by a Mad- dened Elephant 1n the A frican Jungle. By .Samuel Scoville, Jr. ACK in the bad old days when bilack instead of white ruled South Africa bloodily, Cetowayo, that great Zulu king, sent 12 of his best hunters to the Addo bushtobrllwhekthemdnbull elephant. Just before dawn the 12 slipped snakily through the scrub and then spread out like a pack of hunting dogs. Through the dim silences of the jungle they glided like ghosts. The forest gave way to the bush proper, & green sea of low trees, riddled with the tralls ‘of -ele- phant, rhinoceros and water buffalo. At last, at a signal from Nijan, the leader, the little band halted in the shade of an old fig tree, wreathed in a mist of gray mess, on wiose gnarled limbs orchids white and crimson and gold gleemed like jewels. “There is a herd close at hand—I feel them,” whispered the old hunter as they grouped themselves about him. ‘Let every man be yeady, for they will charge on sight.”] Again they moved like phantoms among the Jow trees, in that silence which hunters only acquire in a lifetime afield. Even as he did so, out of the bushes burst a black-maned lion. Instantly there sounded just bebind him, from a little glade fringed with brush, a shrill, angry trumpeting, and a black wave of charging cow elephants rushed from the thicket—for in an elephant herd it is always the cows which first charge an approaching enemy. The mat- ted mass of tough creepers snapped like pack- thread before them, while the lion, flinging aside all his dignity and, looking like a huge yellow cat, ran for his life. A charging lion for about 200 yards is one of the fastest of all animals, and within that distance can run down a horse or an antelope. Only the cheetah, or hunting leopard, the swiftest sprinter on earth, can equal him among the cats. Yet the dark bulks of the charging cows, crashing through the bush and moving clumsily across the plain on their enormous feet nearly two yards in ecircumference, drifted toward the fugitive with such effortless speed that he only just gained the refuge of the oppesite thicket before they were upon him. A! some of the hunters, inexperienced in elephant ways, started to move toward the herd, the old leader restrained them. “Wait,” he whispered. “Comes now the chief.” Even as he spoke, a trumpet sounded from the depths of the thicket where the herd had been feeding. Unlike the m-mhed voices of the cows, this call was a booming note, deep, heavy and subterranean. Then the eclose-sct steelly stems of the lantana serub burst apart, and into the open strode such a beast as even Nijan in all of his 50 years of hunting bhad never seen before. Twelve feet high at his mighty shoylders, he seemed to stand before them from another world. His skin was a rough sla color, sparsely covered with tiny and his enormous trunk, with black snake. Each of feet had four toes, and plainly beyond the rim of peculiarity which in after years name of “Long-toe.” As the beast stood facing the ret old Nijan, taking advantage of every tree and patch of fern, crept up to few yards of where he stood. Then, cecking his old-fashioned musket, he aimed «carefully. Nijan pulled the trigger—but instead of a report, there sounded only & dull click as the eartridge, one of a damaged lot which & ras- eally trader had sold the tribe, failed to ex- At the sound the elephant’s flapping trunk, as an® African elephant always does when about to charge, with an appalling bellow of rage the king of the herd rushed straight at the old hunter. As the monster reached THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, SEPTEMBER §, 1931, HI 2% F el isg; L 1 g ; { :?ig;ii g!igggs 35?3 timorous felk, but ‘Quit for fear." Cats, rats, degs, snakes, der—he was afraid of more things were blotches on 'his snowy skin; hence his name. In Africa, as in England, his duty, as he saw it, was to follow his master wherever he went, and especially to trot under the squire's like a flicker of heat lightning-—Quit's motto was -peace at any price, The dogs:of ‘Pinetown soon learned that he was too proud to fight, and when for the third time they drove him yelping into the shop where the squire was buying supplies the latter decided that although a leopard eannot change his spots, a bull terrior can. Where- fore, the next day, with'a 'bit of charcoal he did a fair imitation of Quit’s polka-dot pattern on Grit’s pinky-white skin; then, tying up the ccach-dog, who protested piteously, the Squire drove slowly to Pinetown with Grit, trotting beneath the trap playing all unconciously Quit's solved to give at least one spotted foreign dog. In free field the squire entered the nearest shop, and the door had no more than closed be him when the pariah pack rushed at the the that those half and quarter to attack him—Grit, the son of son of Death, and the grea tling Slasher himself—his deep-set ccnvinced that the stories of his haunting bush were native legends not worthy of belief. Then there came a day when one of best oxen broke out of pasture and wandered away. The native herdsman tralied it to the 'very edge of the ‘bush, but not a foot farther 'would he venture. It was In vain that the squire ordered one man after another to go in after the miss- Finally, with the rashness of ignorance, the squire decided to hunt for the lost ox himself. Unfortunately for him, there were no other white men on the plantation that dey to advise against such an action. The overseer, & hard- bitten, experienced old Scotchman, had gone to Pinetown for supplies, and his assistant was in the Port Elizabeth Hospital with an attack of black-water fever., Wherefore it happened that daybreak found the squire, armed only with a shotgun, following the narrow trail which led through the strip of jungle that fringed the bush proper. With him went Grit; greatly interested in this unfamiliar tersitory, while Quit also insisted upon going, although he hesitated and whined protestingly as they reached the edge of the bush. Behind the three, as they entered the jungle, the newly-risen run drenched the thorn scrub with that liquid .amber gold which is the color of -Africa. The trail of the Jest ex showed black against the sliver of the dewy grasses as the trio penetrated deeper-and deeper into the sinister shade. Here and there showed spikes of aloe, tall euphorbias, and the flat-topped acacias on which the giraffes feed, while spears of wild sizaal stood up like sharpened stakes among patches of gray impenetrable thorn scrub. For an hour the dogs and man followed the trail, until it ended in a trampled circle 50 feet across, filled with round, deep holes. From the farther edge of the circle Quit, who had pressed on ahead, came hurrying back with his tail between his legs. There the squire found the carcass of the lost ox, & shapeless maass of the open not 30 feet away. man-and the monster faced each other, pricking up his ears and hoisting his short tail, courage. tigers on foot in the sal jungles of since he had been in Africa had already and killed a charging lon. That day, ever, the sight of the vast bulk of Tushing down upon him gave him sense of helpless terror as if he were avalanche or a tornado. Hurling his gun to one side, he wriggled Iike & beneath a patch of mimosa scrub bristling 10-inch thorns, sharp ‘as needles, Just as he came to the center of that guarded ‘¢ircle elephant reached its circumference, and tried ; i 4] g %5%%%5 * by main strength to thrust his way through the daggered steel-strong boughs. AILING in his first « peing pricked by the long thorns. Grit took one look at the mountain of flesh which had suddenly loomed up before him as he stood in the lee of the thicket where his mastes had taken refuge, and, suddenly deciding that fighte ing elephants was no part of his dutles, turned deliberately around -and trotted off down the back:trail toward home. For a long moment the great beasd stared with dreadful intentness at the man, #nd his sswinish little eyes burned red with the lust of slaughter. Then, turning around, he delibere ately backed into the thorn-studded serub witla his enormous hind gquarters, and sa$ down, fattening part of the thicket and nearly impale ing the man on the thorns. As Long-toe was scrambling to his feet preparatory to repeating the attack. an ally of the squire appeared upon the field. At the first outbreak of hostilities Quit had retreated to the rear with exceeding prompte ness, whining with fear—but had not gone home. When Grit retreated, the coach dog whined still more loudly, but still he stayede Then, when the elephant began to sit his way througi the thicket, it was not Grit the fightes who intervencd, but Quit the coward, Whimpe ering and trambling with terror, he snapped and worried at the elephant's feet, sensitive as they ‘were large, until with a scream of rage the great buil suddenly turned and charged him, As the dog. yelping with fear fled, the squire slipped out from the far side of the thicket and ran for his life down one of the winding trails which led out of the bush, Unfortunately for the squire, Qui# ®oon managed to hide himself in a elump of aeacia thorn. Losing sight of him, the maddened elephant rushed back to take vengeance on the enemy he had left behind, and, Sinding hing gone, followed him by scent like & hound. Nearly exhausted and breathing im shorfy of the elephone start relentlessly down thea trail after him. There seemed to be no way of escape left. Then as he swung around @& grea thicket of tangled acacias and was hidde: moment from his pursuer he saw @& perate chance for life. Beyond the brush was a spot on the plain where grew longer and was Of a darker green' elsewhere. Squire Weston had been warned his overseer to look out for aardvark diggings in such places when riding over the veldi, fo¥ that strange anteater, with the ears of & muld and the eves of a cow, brings up the sich soil when 1t digs. and the grass always grows Jusld and tall around one of its burrows. § Stopping for an instant and zigsagging Dack and forth in wide circles so a8 10 tanglé his . the hunted man suddenly took & flying leap into the long grass and .scuttied om hig hands and knees down the deserted ‘burrow which he found there. Boareely had he dise appeared from sight when, erashing through the brush, the black killer reached the -spof where he had stood but & momend before, Trumpeting shrilly, his ears pricked up ead his stumpy tail cocked above his great baek, ] monster looked about from side to side wi quick glances from his twinkling little red By a desperate effort the squire had aged to crawl backward some 6 feet down burrow. At that point the tunnel tooke & den turn, and try as he would, he eould farther. From where he lay he could sinister monster scrutinizing every foot plain as it drifted nearer and mearer. $0 hind it once discovered his hiding place, he that he would be dragged out of the the -elephant’s trunk to be stamped $3 - under his vast feet. Winnowing the air before him through sensitive nostrils as he came, the great movet like doom nearer and nearer g ! the ‘man lay hidden under the tangled grash Then, just as the <squire tensed 'his muscles 'for ‘the screech ‘with whicli the elephant ‘would announce its m‘ £ a3 TR Continued on Eighteenth Pagl -l v