They were talking it over and the cowboy had released the goat, when that animal made a charge with his head on our party. He struck Pa below the belt, butted the boss in the trousers until he laid down and begged for mercy, stabbed the cowboy with his horns and then made a hop, skip and jump for the gas bag, burst a hole in it, and when the gas began to escape the goat’s horns got caught in the gas bag and the goat died from the effects of the gas, and we were all glad until about fifty peasant women came across the fields with agricultural implements and were going to kill us all.
Pa said, “Well, what do you know about that,” but the women were fierce and wanted our blood. The boss could talk French, and he offered to give them the goat to settle it, but they said it was their goat any way, and they wanted blood or damages.
Pa said it was easier to give damages than blood, and just as they were going to cut up the gas bag the boss settled with them for about twenty dollars, and hired them to haul the airship to the nearest station, and we shipped it to Berlin and got ready to follow the next day.
Pa says we will have a high old time in Africa. He says he wants to ride up to a lion’s den in his airship and dare the fiercest lion to come out and fight, and that he wouldn’t like any better fun than to ride over a royal bengal tiger in the jungle and reach down and grab his tail and make him synawl like a tom cat on a fence in the alley.
He talks about riding down a herd of elephants and picking out the biggest ones and roping them; and the way Pa is going to scare rhinoceroses and hippopotamuses and make them bleat like calves is a wonder.
I think Pa is the bravest man I ever saw, when he tells it, but I noticed when we had that goat by the horns and he was caught in a barbed wire fence, so the airship had to slow down until he came loose, Pa turned as pale as a sheet, and when the goat bucked him in the stomach Pa’s lips moved as though in praying. Well, anyway, this trip to Africa to catch wild animals is going to show what kind of sand there is in all of us.
CHAPTER XI.
The Boy and His Pa Leave France and Go to Germany, Where They Buy an Airship—They Get the Airship Safely Landed—Pa and the Boy With the Airship Start for South Africa—Pa Shows the Men What Power He Has Over the Animal Kingdom.
I was awful glad to get out of France and into Germany, and when we had got the airship safely landed at the Hagenbach stock farm and boxed and baled ready to load on a boat for South Africa, and all hands had drank a few schooners of beer, and felt brave enough to tackle any wild animal that walks the earth, I listened to the big talk and the gestures, though I couldn’t understand a word they said, except when they held up their fingers for more beer.