There are other pests besides insects, snakes, and drouth to be guarded against in Africa. One of these is fire. In making a camp, it is always wise to burn off the ground about the tents for the sake of protection. The most strenuous fight I ever had to make against a grass fire took place in Uganda the day that I killed the big bull elephant now in the Milwaukee Public Museum. We had been working hard from eleven o'clock in the morning until early evening. Meanwhile, camp had been made close to our work in a country of bush and high grass. Immediately surrounding our camp the grass was five feet high and very dense and dry. To the east of us was a great jungle of elephant grass, a sort of cane growing to a height of ten or fifteen feet. For two or three hours I was conscious of a great fire to the east, but there was little wind and it travelled slowly. Whenever it came to one of the fields of elephant grass the roaring and crackling was quite appalling, and when it finally reached the clump of grass nearest our camp we realized that we would probably have to make a fight. There was no time to backfire and so we tried the next best thing. About twenty-five yards from the tents we started to make a trail stretching for a hundred yards across the path of the fire. This was done by bending the grass down on both sides, leaving a path along which we could move freely. Then the job was to stop the fire at the parting of the grass. A hundred men, each provided with an armful of green branches, scattered along this thin line to beat the fire out as it reached the division. We had a terrific fight. In several places the fire jumped across the trail, but each time enough men concentrated at that point to kill it before it got an overpowering foothold. It was hot, smoky, desperate work. When it was ended, the tents were safe although the men were thoroughly done up.
It was one of these grass fires, although by no means such a persistent one, that threatened Roosevelt's camp the night after our elephant hunt on the Uasin Gishu Plateau.
CHAPTER VII BILL
He is a little Kikuyu thirteen years old who has attached himself to our safari; a useful little beggar, always finds something to busy himself with; better take him with you. We call him Bill. "Come here, Bill."
Bill came up—a little, naked, thirteen-year-old "Kuke" with great black eyes. The eyes did it. Mrs. Akeley decided that Bill should go with us. He was given a khaki suit two sizes too big for him which made the black eyes sparkle. He was made the assistant of Alli, Mrs. Akeley's tent boy, and his training as tent boy began.
In six months Bill had become a full-fledged tent boy, with plenty of time always at his disposal to mix up with almost everything going on in camp. I think of him now, after three expeditions in which he has been with me, as the best tent boy, the best gun-bearer, the best tracker, and the best headman that it has ever been my lot to know—a man who, I know, would go into practically certain death to serve me. If I were starting out on an expedition among unknown people in Africa I would rather have Bill as a headman and as a counselor in dealing with the savages, even though they were people of whom Bill knew nothing, than any one I know of.
During that first six months' apprenticeship Bill was always busy. When there was nothing to do about camp he would borrow some of Heller's traps and set them for jackals, or he would be poking about the bush looking for lizards or snakes that we might want for the collections. Months passed, and Bill was an inconspicuous member of our little army of followers. We were camped on the top of the Aberdare; Cuninghame and I were returning from a fruitless four days on elephant trails. As we neared camp we saw Mrs. Akeley come out on the road ahead of us, with Alli acting as gun-bearer. An elephant had passed a few hundred yards from camp and she had come out to the road in the hope of getting a shot as it crossed. A little farther on toward camp we met Bill, stripped to the waist, carrying my 8 mm. rifle and a pocket of 6 mm. cartridges. If there was anything doing Bill had to be in it.
A few weeks later on, our wanderings took us into Kikuyu country and near to Bill's native village. He sent for his "mamma," to whom he wanted to give some of his earnings. So his mother came to camp and Bill introduced her. He led me out to where she was leaning against a rock, and pointing to her said, "mamma." She was a young shenzie woman of the usual type, dressed in a leather skirt and bead and brass ornaments.