The Way of the Wild

by F. St. Mars

The moon was up when the wounded mother ratel, on guard at the mouth of her burrow, looked up sharply. A side-striped jackal, who kidded himself she had not seen him lying in wait to find out, when she went hunting, what she hid in that den, suddenly bolted with a yap; and a hyena, represented by two burning eyes, who appeared, by some magic of his own, to guess she was wounded, jumped up and made way for something that approached. It was her husband and the cobra, the latter trailing along limply behind, who came that way; and even the hyena had retired, with an audible sigh—at least, it wasn't a moan quite—when he claimed the path. After all, there is no sense, if you are the most cowardly beast for your power on earth, in getting up against the pluckiest thing in creation in full possession of life and liberty.

Later our ratel sallied forth to "face the world" again. His wife had recovered from her wounds—the result, these, of refusing to believe she was not so good as a twelve-foot python, and a bit better—sufficiently to walk slowly; but that was not enough to face that wild where die-quicks, from lions, down through leopards, hyenas, wild-dogs, jackals, and the rest, are forever hiding, on the lookout for unfortunate ones flying an S.O.S. signal. No, he must go and do the provisioning alone, and alone he went.

For a peaceful beast, one only too pleased to mind his own business and thank other folks to mind theirs, his subsequent doings were rather astonishing. This was because he cared for neither man nor beast nor devil, in the first place, and because the night produced all three, in the second.

He got man in the form of the smell of meat—well-seasoned meat, even for Africa!—what time he was testing a native village, by scent and on the downwind side of him—and that showed his pluck, my word!—for honey or fowl. He detected neither out of the few dozen unspeakable stenches, but struck meat, and following it up-wind, arrived at a piece—a good big piece—on the ground among grass.

A civet cat—who is more civet than cat, by the way—a small spotted genet—who looked like an exaggerated ferret in the uncertain gloom—and the inevitable black-backed jackal—who must not be confused with him of the side-stripes—faded out at his approach like steam in a dry atmosphere. He might have felt proud of this silent respect, if it were not a fact that these gentry, these village frontier haunters, scenting danger, thought it a fine "kink" to let the brave one test it first.

And he did.

To be exact, that ratel touched off the tooth-jawed trap that was the reason for that free meal of high and valuable meat in that place, and when he jumped he didn't get anywhere. Also, it hurt his leg abominably.

Then the others reincarnated themselves out of the shadows—especially the jackal, who shouted "Yaaaa-ya-ya-ya!" and called a friend—and waited for things to happen. They were confident things would happen, for Africa is not a good place wherein to get caught in a trap—there is too much likelihood of being mistaken for the bait!

But they might as well have seen a thunder "portent" captured by the tail as this ratel by the leg; for, instead of instantly and foolishly abandoning himself to the frenzy of unthinkable fear—the fear of being trapped is the greatest of all to a free, wild thing—as practically all others would have done, he said nothing at all; he failed to lose his head; and, to crown all, he instantly, coolly, slowly, viciously, and doggedly set himself to struggle, with a grim persistence that was amazing. And, moreover, from that instant he never left off.

A striped hyena, seemingly in lifelong terror of his own shadow, turned up by magic—or perhaps he heard the snap of the trap. Seven times he bolted, for no earthly reason that one could see, before finally gaining courage to snap at the ratel at the very end of his reach. It was the kind of snap that would take half a man's face away, and not nice to meet when you are trapped. The ratel, however, came calmly at the hyena, trap and all, and so nearly got his own trap-jaws locked home on the unclean one that the hyena was glad to go away.