Adventure Magazine Cover — page 148: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

we “ ( hat > “ Het es ar St ote 146 did not see them. He was singing loudly, and beating time with his right hand. “Truly he is very drunk,” one of the natives remarked. “That is so,” the other agreed. “And when the white men are drunk, they hit us without reason.”’ Without more ado they turned on their tracks and quickly disappeared. DU PLESSIS soon found out that McCall had gone off in earnest. On the following morning, when he discovered that both the pack- saddies were still at the little hotel, and— presumably—both of their pack donkeys sull grazing peacefully on the commonage of the outspan, he had chuckled. It would have been slimmer if McCall had taken one of the donkeys, just to make it look as if he really was going. So he settled himself comfortably on the hotel stoop and awaited ently the arrival of the steel rackets. But on the following.afternoon a man came in from an outlying farm and reported that McCall had passed his place that , meaded toward the northern Le- bombo Mountains. He was carrying a pack and seemed ina badtemper. But, then, old McCall was always a bit of a character. Du Plessis made up his mind deliberately, but with characteristic finality. McCall had gone without donkeys and had two days start. Donkeys are utterly impossible when it comes to quick traveling. Therefore it behooved him to follow McCall’s example and carry his own pack. That he could let McCall go on alone never even occurred ~ to him. “When do you go back to your farm?” he asked the man from outside, who had driven im behind a couple of mules im- munized to the sickness so fatal to their kind in the South African fever country. “First thing tomorrow. I’ve got a few things to fix up, and we can make a night of it, hey?” _ “Of course. But as soon as it is light tomorrow we must set out. It will save time ii you drive me to your house, for I want to catch up old McCall. It—it was not fair that [I let him go off by himself.” So they had had their night of it, and Du Plessis, who had an iron head, had seen to it that the unhappy farmer was on the road by daybreak. And when he had been driven as far as the farmer could take him, he t Adventure strapped his pack to his massive shoulders and with a brief nod of thanks set off into’ the wilds.. He slouched along and did not seem in any hurry; but the miles totaled up amazingly behind him. On the afternoon of the third day he came to Sibuya’s kraal—the kraal which at that moment McCall was striving desperately to reach from the other side. For McCall had passed through the kraal and was beating back to it from beyond. Most of the men were away on a hunting expedition, but the few natives still there welcomed Du Plessis hospitably. Yes, ““Rhinoceros’”—the native and by no means flattering name for Mc- Call—had passed through two days since. He had stayed for the night in the guest hut, and had left early the following day. He talked very little. Du Plessis stayed long enough to smoke a pipe in comfort and drink a huge bowl of native beer; then he shouldered his pack again and set out, heading due east for the mountains. Toward sundown he saw the smoke of a fire, and, walking to it, found Sibuya’s hunting party incamp. Sibuya was a trucu- lent old chief with Matabele blood in his veins, an avowed despot with benign views, a staunch friend and an enthusiastic enemy. He had made a little history in his time, but in his later years had been unswervingly loyal. They had had good hunting, and Du Plessis was received with acclamation. But when he made known that he wanted to catch up with McCall two strange na- tives, who had but just and by chance joined the camp for the night, asked quick questions; and then one of them laughed. “This man you seek,” he said, “we saw but three hours since. He had made a big fire, so that we wondered if the veld was alight, this not being the season. But when we drew near we saw he was seated there, singing very loudly, and waving his arms about. Truly he was very drunk.” There came a sudden silence at that, for the men of Sibuya’s kraal knew well enough that such action was utterly out of keeping with the character of the man they knew as the Rhinoceros; and Du Plessis knew be- yond any shadow of doubt that it meant tragedy. When any man, by himself in the wilds, begins to behave strangely, whatever the cause, the end is not far off. And in the case of McCall, a hardened campaigner, it meant that the end was near indeed. Gomichbooks.com