CHAPTER XII

AT THE BURNED STATION

“Well, Joe, how do you like it?”

“I don’t know, Blake. It’s a heap-sight different from camping out on our Western plains.”

“I should say so!” exclaimed C. C. Piper. “If there’s one inch of me that hasn’t been bitten by some of these ticks, I’d like someone to point it out. I know I’ll never get back alive to----”

“Hold on there!” cried Blake, with a laugh, “I thought you’d given up all that sort of thing, since coming to Africa.”

“So I have,” answered the hunter-actor. “I forgot myself for a moment. At the same time, those ticks do bite; but I suppose it had better be them than a hippo,” and he proceeded to apply some healing lotion to the bites of the insects that make life in Africa a burden to man and beast, not even the mighty lion, nor the thick-skinned rhinoceros, escaping.

“I never thought the mosquitoes would be so bad,” came from the tent where Mr. Duncan was sleeping--or, rather, trying to sleep. “There must be a hole in my mosquito canopy,” he went on.

“Do as I once read of an Irishman doing,” suggested Sergeant Hotchkiss.

“How was that?” asked Mr. Piper.

“Why, the Irishman put up at a hotel in some part of Jersey, where the mosquitoes were very bad,” went on the former Boer soldier. “He was shown to his room, and found a mosquito netting over the bed. He didn’t know exactly what it was for, but he managed to solve the problem to his own satisfaction at least. In the morning the hotel clerk asked him how he slept, also inquiring if the mosquitoes bothered him very much.

“The Irishman said they did, until he had an inspiration. He said he tore a hole in the ‘fishnet’ over his bed.

“‘Sure and all the mosquitoes went in that,’ he said, ‘and I just laid down on the floor, after closin’ up the hole, with them all inside, and slept in peace and quietness.’”

“That’s pretty good,” remarked Mr. Duncan, “but I don’t believe African mosquitoes are like that.”

It was their third day out, and they had traveled over a considerable stretch of country. The porters were fresh, and had made good time. Mr. Piper was lucky enough to shoot a big eland, and this furnished meat, which the white travelers were almost as glad to partake of as were the blacks.

The boys had tried several times to get moving pictures of some of the herds of wildebeest or hartebeest, a species of antelope, and also the numerous gazelles, the Thompson variety, known locally as “Tommy’s,” and also the Grant. But they had been unsuccessful from various causes. Sometimes, just as they got ready to begin grinding away at the film, having placed the camera at some water hole, or stream where game came to drink, the clicking would frighten the timid creatures away.

Or the deer would scent some animal that they dreaded--a lion or leopard, and would gallop off before Joe or Blake could get the desired films.

Then, if they waited for the more powerful animals to appear, something might frighten them off, and so the opportunity would be lost.

“But we’ll get ’em yet,” said Joe. “I’d rather get some of the wilder or bigger animals, if we could, instead of these deer-like creatures, anyhow.”

“Oh, we’ll get ’em all in time,” declared his chum.

And so they had traveled on, the expedition making good time. During the terrible heat of midday, almost on the equator as they were, they rested in shade if they could find it, or under their tents. At night they would seek out some spot near water, tether their animals, raise the canvas shelters, and have supper, dining on the provisions they had brought with them, or on what game Mr. Piper or the sergeant shot.

Occasionally the boys themselves, under the guidance of the former soldier, would go out and try their luck at providing the larder with something substantial. And often they were lucky, for the country abounded in game.

Then, when the porters came back laden with meat, there would be general rejoicing, Happy One leading the chant in honor of the white men and boys.

And now they had come again to a night camp. Fires had been lighted in several places, about which squatted the blacks, with their scanty blankets. But they did not mind the ticks and mosquitoes, as long as they were warm and well fed.

“A strange sight,” murmured C. C., as he looked from the tent where all the whites slept, out on the surrounding camp fires. The flames played on the strongly-marked features of the blacks, throwing them into bold relief. Happy One, who had resumed his hyena skull headpiece on getting rid of his burden, went from place to place, here starting a weird song, there pausing to tell some story of the ancient days.

The smell of cooking was in the air, for the African porters never seemed to tire of eating. Even as they sang they roasted strips of meat on slender sticks at the blazes.

“It sure is strange,” agreed Blake, as he looked on the scene. “Getting the films of the Indians was nothing to this.”

“But we haven’t got many films as yet,” said Joe.

“No, but we will,” said his chum. “We will soon be at Kargos, and then----”

“Then we may find some trace of Sister Jessie,” said Joe, in a low voice. “I only hope we do.”

They talked for some time longer, and then turned over and tried to go to sleep. It was not easy work. Their surroundings were strange, and they were not as comfortable as they might have been, though they had brought all the conveniences they could with them.

Even at that, with the chattering of baboons in the distance, the night-noises of the wild fowl and the birds, the occasional grunt of a hippo or the louder noise of the rhino, like some locomotive whistling and blowing off steam at the same time, there was enough disturbance to keep even a bigger camp awake.

Then, when they did drop off into a doze, there came a sudden alarm. From afar sounded a noise like thunder. It rumbled and roared, and the boys sat up on their collapsible cots.

“What is it?” cried Joe.

“A storm,” answered his chum.

“Lions!” exclaimed Sergeant Hotchkiss, who had caught the words of the frightened porters.

They all turned out with their guns, while the fires blazed brightly from the wood thrown on by the natives. But the noise died off in the distance, and the beasts that are called the “kings” of the jungle sought some other spot to make their nightly kill.

“Oh, for a chance to take a picture of the lions!” sighed Joe, as he again sought his bed.

“We’ll get it yet,” said Blake, as he, too, turned in.

The next day broke hot and dry. They had been subject to a number of thunder storms, in which the vividness of the lightning and the terrific explosions of heaven’s artillery they had never seen nor heard equaled, but now there seemed to come a period of calm, and they traveled onward amid intense heat.

It was hard work, but the porters, under the “jollying” of Happy One, did not seem to mind it. C. C., too, seemed to retain his good spirits and made no direful predictions.

But Mr. Duncan, no less than Joe and Blake, was anxious to get to the place where, according to reports, his daughter had last been. They questioned many native tribes, as they went along, and were told that the mission station was still many miles farther along.

“And when we get there, what will we find?” asked Joe, and there was anxiety in his tone.

“Maybe not as bad as we have heard,” said Blake, encouragingly.

And so they traveled on. Lucky it was that C. C. and Sergeant Hotchkiss were along, for on them devolved the work of keeping the camp in meat. The boys did their best, but they had not had the experience, nor the practice in bringing down big game. But the former soldier and the actor-hunter were sharp on the trail, and brought down many a lusty buck of the antelope species, occasionally getting a giraffe, or some smaller animal good for food. Everything was grist that came to the mill of the Africans, though the whites were more fastidious. Though even with the most unprepossessing animals there were some parts good for food.

“Well, I wonder what we’ll strike to-day?” spoke Joe, on the second day’s trek after their night when the mosquitoes and ticks had been so troublesome.

“More moving pictures, I hope,” said his chum.

That day they had been lucky enough to film a herd of giraffes feeding on the tops of some tall trees. The two lads had managed to creep up close under cover, and, setting their cameras, had snapped the tall, but in a way graceful, creatures as they ate. There was no desire to shoot them, but some noise gave the alarm, and away they went over the plain at an ungainly gallop, their tails twisting about in the queerest fashion.

“We are getting near the village where my sister was,” went on Joe, in a low voice. “Happy One, according to the sergeant, said that by noon we would make it. I wonder what we’ll find there. If we can only pick up some clue----”

“Of course we will,” put in C. C., cheerfully.

A little later there came a shout from the porters who were in the lead. There appeared to be considerable excitement, and at first the boys thought something had happened.

“An attack by some wild animal!” cried Joe.

“A lion, maybe,” added Blake. “Get the camera ready.”

“That isn’t an alarm,” said Sergeant Hotchkiss, quietly.

“What is it, then?” asked Mr. Duncan.

“They are singing a song of lament--of sorrow,” was the answer.

A chill struck to the hearts of the boys, as they pushed forward. What would they see?

“It must be the station where--where Jessie was,” said Mr. Duncan, brokenly. “If there are any of the mission people left they may be able to----”

But he did not finish. Accompanied by the boys he made a turn in the trail which brought him to the little clearing where the mission had been. But the station was gone.

It had been destroyed, and nothing but a fire-blackened area marked where it had stood. There were the ruins of the buildings, and of the charred huts occupied by the natives from whom an attempt had been made to lift the darkness of ignorance. All was gone! The little church was burned--nothing but a pile of charred timbers. The raiders had done their work well.

The song of the African porters seemed to become more and more melancholy. They felt for their white employers, for the story of the search for the daughter of Mr. Duncan was known to all.

“Nothing left!” exclaimed Mr. Duncan, and he placed his hand on Joe’s shoulder. “Not a trace. Oh, my poor Jessie!”

There was silence for a moment, and then C. C. Piper, who had gone forward, uttered a cry--a cry of joy, it seemed.

“What is it?” asked Blake, eagerly. “Have you a clue?”

“I think I have, and a good one, too!” replied the actor-hunter.