Oscar in Africa

by Harry Castlemon

While he was busy cooking his supper a man approached and handed him a note, which proved to be from the gentleman with whom he had taken dinner the day before. It introduced the bearer, Robert McCann, as one who, for a suitable consideration, would accompany him as cook, companion, and after-rider.

I do not recommend him [so the note ran], for I know but little about him. He has been into the interior on several trading expeditions, and is well acquainted with the country for which you are bound. He claims to be an old elephant hunter. He is the only man that can be found in Leichtberg just at present, and if I were in your place I would rather take him than go without anybody.

"Well," said Oscar after he had read the note, "if you can act as my guide after I get beyond Zurnst, and can tell where the best camping-grounds are, and find water for the cattle when they get thirsty, I think you are the man I want, provided you know how to retain your good-nature at all times and under all circumstances. I have known men who were the best kind of fellows so long as they had a tight roof over them and a warm fire in front of them, or a well-filled table at their elbow, but who proved to be anything but agreeable companions when they were caught out in a storm and had to go cold, wet, and hungry. Can you handle a rifle?"

"I can't remember the day when I couldn't," replied the man in a tone Oscar did not like.

"I want not only a good cook, but also an after-rider who is a dead shot, and who can be depended on in any emergency," continued Oscar. "I am not going into the wilderness on a pleasure excursion. I am going there to hunt, and the sooner I get through with the work that has been laid out for me to do the sooner I can go home. I want a man who is not afraid of work, and who is not all the time trying to see how little he can do to earn his food and wages."

Oscar then went on to describe the man's duties, telling him, in the plainest language, what he should expect if he agreed to accompany him into the wilderness; and at the end of half an hour a bargain had been struck, and Robert McCann returned to the village, after promising to be on hand bright and early the next morning, all ready to "set in."

"They told me he was a young fellow, but I didn't expect to find him a boy," soliloquized McCann as he walked toward Leichtberg. "Of course he can't boss me, and I shall take pains to let him see it. And he had the impudence to ask if I could handle a gun, and to tell me that he wanted an after-rider who could be depended on! I'll warrant I can kill game where he can't find any; and as for standing up to the rack when trouble comes—— Hold on a bit!" said Mr. McCann, rubbing his hands gleefully together. "Wait until he gets his first sight of a mad buffalo! I'll make him wish he had never seen or heard of Africa! I am to receive twenty-five pounds for staying with him until he gets back to Leichtberg. He wants me to be gone nearly a year, but if I can make him come back in two or three months so much the better for me. I shall earn my twenty-five pounds very easily. Aha! that's an idea that is worth thinking of."

"I don't much like that fellow," said Oscar to himself as he looked after McCann's retreating figure. "He is inclined to be insolent, and I am afraid there is much more brag than work in him. But, after all, he is better than nobody, and if I don't like him I can give him his walking-papers as soon as we arrive at Zurnst."

But McCann proved, at the start, to be better than his employer thought he would. He was an excellent cook, was possessed of considerable intelligence, was rather fluent in speech, and Oscar found no little pleasure in listening to his stories, of which he seemed to have an inexhaustible supply.

Sometimes the young hunter thought McCann drew largely on his imagination when telling of the wonderful exploits he had performed among the elephants and lions of the "Great Thirst Land"; and, indeed, he did.