Sadok was grouched. A faint but noisesome odor came from somewhere in the jungle, where his three heads were drying, but here, look you, had been two fights with the Outanatas since, and never a head for his personal collection! He was comforted, however, by the curator telling him that the upas vine, or some other representative of the strychnine family, grew in New Guinea, also, and that there would be plenty of ructions before he ever saw Borneo again.
Their stay at this camp had given them not only a fair idea of the general features of the country, but of the weather as well. Under the west monsoon, its daily changes were as regular as clockwork. A fine cool dawn, followed by several hours of misty and clearing weather when it was good to be up and doing; then the heat of midday, when even the jungle people knew enough to take a siesta; and then, about four o’clock, a tropical thunderstorm of the utmost violence, lasting until eight at night, when the sky cleared off. They soon learned to plan their day according to these weather changes, and at length the party broke camp for the long trek into the mountains. They followed much the same trail as before, to the table-lands along the mountain flank, and stopped for lunch on the pebbly site of their capture by the war party of the Outanatas of the week before.
But with what different feelings now! Then the fear of the unknown, the dread of meeting cannibal savages who would surely regard them as but strangers to be killed and eaten at sight. Now a feeling of confidence replaced all that. They had established the superiority of the white man in all that region, the respect in the native mind that is based only on superior force. Not even a native runner had dared show his face since that punitive expedition of the curator’s. They even felt confident to hunt singly, not too far from the main party. While the others were settling down for the noonday siesta in the heat of midday, Dwight spied a flash of brilliant orange in the greens of the jungle across the creek, and set out alone after the bird, shotgun in hand. The orange spot flew off into the jungle as he drew near it, but Dwight had caught a glimpse of black-velvet plumage, and that flaming fire of orange on the throat, which made him tingle all over with the thrill that it might be the exceedingly rare six-shafted bird of paradise! He followed on through the jungle, his eyes fixed on that small dot of black perched far ahead, high in the tree tops. Moving as cautiously as he could, he worked through the festooned creepers and the huge boles of giant jungle trees toward his prize. But to his chagrin, it flew off again, just as he was about to try the spiteful little twenty-gauge at long range.
The boy’s eyes followed the bird avidly. To bring back a six-shafter! Why, all this expedition had been for just such a prize as this! Nothing is known of this bird save what can be conjectured from the few skins now in the world’s museums. To add one more to that meager collection, each specimen with who knows what story of adventure and privation behind it, seemed to Dwight a corking enterprise. Using all the woodcraft he possessed, he worked silently through the jungle. Experience had taught him to look ahead for a place to plant each footstep, not only to be sure that one did not step on a snake, but also to insure the foot coming down in position to fire instantly. With gun muzzle up, he advanced carefully, praying earnestly that his quarry might linger just a few minutes more.
Again the paradise bird fluttered off, and this time Dwight had but a line on where he had gone, for the last glimpse of him disappeared through the jungle, far off through the tree trunks. He groaned with disappointment, but he was not the boy to give up while there was a ghost of a chance left. Fixing on a tall Erythrina as the last tree past which the bird had soared, he set out as fast as possible. In perhaps half an hour he reached the tree, and, taking the range, set out again, his eyes scrutinizing the leafy foliage of the jungle roof. He had about begun to lose hope now, and, moreover, to realize that he was totally lost in the jungle, far from his companions, when a flutter of wings some distance ahead showed him his siren bird, flitting about and feeding on clusters of blue tropical berries that hung in the foliage of a high tree top that loomed up ahead.
Dwight heaved a sigh of relief. The bird would surely stay there, feeding, and he had plenty of time for a careful stalk. He wormed through the jungle, and at last arrived where an aim could be had, at not more than forty yards. Raising the gun carefully, he fired, and down came his prize, at last!
It was with a sort of breathless wonder that Dwight looked over the six-shafted bird of paradise as he lifted it gently out of the dense undergrowth in which it had fallen. Why did nature lavish such abundant beauty on a bird destined never to be seen by eyes that could appreciate it? Human eyes, that is, for, of course, the bird would be forever a delight to the eyes of that dull-colored little mate of his whose protection demanded something less gorgeously visible. It made him feel how insignificant is man in nature’s world. Man, the animal, as exhibited by the naked savages who inhabited this forest was Nature’s own child; assuredly this bird was not so decorated to please him! Man, the intellectual, civilized man, could feel a thrill of rapture over this creature of Nature’s, admire its intense golden-orange throat scales, its rich, velvety, purple-black plumage, its crown of vivid emerald and topaz colors, with the long wire-haired plumes springing back like a coronet from its head; but Nature cared nothing for intellectual man and his mind, which was not of her doing, and she certainly did not make this bird for him! In fact, we are each one of us two people, Dwight philosophized, amusing himself with these fancies as he examined the paradise bird in his hand—man the animal, the creature of Nature, living very like the animals themselves and dependent on her, like them; and man, the intellectual, a creature of a power that is above Nature, the Being from whom sprang art, religion, philosophy, science, all the things that are above Nature and essentially antagonistic to her. But in the end Nature always has her revenge, for her jungles reclaim proud cities, as in India and Central America, or her deserts isolate them, as Athens and the Parthenon, or her sands bury them, like Egypt and the Sphinx.
“All that sermon from one small tropical bird!” laughed Dwight to himself, carelessly, as his thoughts came back to earth again. “Nature may be irreconcilably hostile to us—but, where am I now, and how am I going to get out? That’s the real question for this man!”
He had no idea how or where his wanderings in pursuit of the paradise bird had taken him. All that was certain was that he had not crossed the creek again, and that he was somewhere east of it. He laid a course west with the compass, and set out, confident that he would sooner or later strike the stream.
But Nature proceeded to show him how utterly insignificant to her is man. The first indication of it was a large plop of her tropical rain which fell on his helmet. Dwight looked up, surprised to see the sky overcast and the thunders of the daily afternoon tropical storm muttering in the mountains. He must have been several hours following this six-shafter! He hurried on back toward the creek, stumbling through the jungle and striving to stifle panicky impulses to run. It was essential to keep his head, and to pick out landmark trees, methodically, ahead on his course, for you cannot steer yourself like a ship with the compass in the jungle. He forced his attention upon this, ignoring the raindrops, the steady patter of which kept up in the tree tops. The wetted undergrowth soon soaked his thin khaki. He now bitterly regretted setting out without his pack. Just a moment to have shouldered it would have been enough, but he had been too eager, too afraid to lose sight of his precious prize.