When an outfit like ours has been working for a while in the open country—especially when the undertaking has no precedent and the outcome is decidedly uncertain—the little happenings of each day gradually grow to have a peculiar significance of their own, and finally a brand-new set of superstitions is formed and half jokingly believed in by every one concerned. In this way an expedition comes to be regarded as lucky or unlucky, or lucky on certain days, or at certain hours of the day, or at certain periods of the moon. The wide reaches of the African veldt have something to do with it, perhaps.
These superstitions are temporary, local, and often purely personal affairs. Means, being a cowboy, believed that when he rode his big-boned bay the drive would be successful. The native dog-boy insisted that when the long-eared bloodhound and the little white terrier were coupled together on the march, the rest of the pack would come through without mishap. Loveless swore by a particular piece of rope, and Mac—which is short for Mohammed—discovered propitious omens on every conceivable occasion.
It was on the first day's march into the Kedong Valley that we had roped the wart-hog. On the journey from Sewell's Farm to Rugged Rocks we had rounded up and photographed the eland. Again, it was on the trek of March 8 to the Wangai River that we had caught our only glimpses of rhinoceros and lion—faint chances of making a capture, but still chances, and better than no signs at all.
And thus, merely because it had turned out so in the past every member of the expedition had come to entertain a semi-serious belief that something momentous was bound to happen on moving day.
A general feeling of expectancy pervaded the entire safari when we broke camp at the Wangai River at dawn of a hazy morning. The sky was clear of clouds, but behind the hills of the Mau escarpment a veldt fire had been burning for several days, so that a veil of smoke was seen hanging in the air as the dawn broadened into day. The smell of the burning veldt and the nearness of the fire lent an oppressive warmth to the still morning.
"You two boys had better carry your heavy ropes," the Colonel said at starting. "We might meet something."
We had finished with the Kedong and Rift valleys. We had hunted every corner of the district within striking distance of the water. And we had had success of a kind. Cheetah, eland, hartebeest, and serval-cat we had roped and tied and photographed. But the really big game had so far escaped us. For this reason we had decided to take the road over the Mau, where the smoke haze hung heavy, and so on into the Sotik country, where both lion and rhino were said to abound.
For the first ten miles of the march our way led across untraveled country, toward the two deep ruts in the veldt that were known as the wagon road. We had an extra ox-wagon with us now, in charge of Mr. Curry, an Africander, who lived with his partner on a farm on the border of the Sotik, and who on his return journey home with his wagon had agreed to help us carry supplies. Curry was slight and round-shouldered, with light yellow hair. His face was burned a bright red, excepting his nose, which was white where the skin was peeling. He had a peculiar, slow, drawling way of talking—when he talked at all, which was seldom. Being an inhabitant of the district into which we were going, he was naturally subjected at first to a number of questions in regard to the big game there.
"Plenty of rhino in your part of the world, I suppose?"
"Y—as," drawled Curry.