IV
SOME HUNTING STORIES FOR CHILDREN
The Heavenly Twins had been off in the mountains during their summerholiday, and in consequence had seen very little of their good oldfriend, Mr. Munchausen. He had written them once or twice, and theyhad found his letters most interesting, especially that one in whichhe told how he had killed a moose up in Maine with his Waterbury watchspring, and I do not wonder that they marvelled at that, for it wasone of the most extraordinary happenings in the annals of the chase.It seems, if his story is to be believed, and I am sure that none ofus who know him has ever had any reason to think that he would deceiveintentionally; it seems, I say, that he had gone to Maine for a week'ssport with an old army acquaintance of his, who had now become a guidein that region. Unfortunately his rifle, of which he was very fond,and with which his aim was unerring, was in some manner mislaid on theway, and when they arrived in the woods they were utterly withoutweapons; but Mr. Munchausen was not the man to be daunted by any suchtrifle as that, particularly while his friend had an old army musket,a relic of the war, stored away in the attic of his woodland domicile.
"Th' only trouble with that ar musket," said the old guide, "ain't somuch that she won't shoot straight, nor that she's got a kick onto herlike an unbroke mule. What I'm most afeard 'on about your shootin'with her ain't that I think she'll bust neither, for the fact is weain't got nothin' for to bust her with, seein' as how ammynition isskeerce. I got powder, an' I got waddin', but I ain't got no shot."
"That doesn't make any difference," the Baron replied. "We can makethe shot. Have you got any plumbing in the camp? If you have, rip itout, and I'll melt up a water-pipe into bullets."
"No, sir," retorted the old man. "Plumbin' is one of the things I camehere to escape from."
"Then," said the Baron, "I'll use my watch for ammunition. It is onlya three-dollar watch and I can spare it."
With this determination, Mr. Munchausen took his watch to pieces, anordinary time-piece of the old-fashioned kind, and, to make a longstory short, shot for several days with the component parts of thatuseful affair rammed down into the barrel of the old musket. With thestem-winding ball he killed an eagle; with pieces of the back coverchopped up to a fineness of medium-sized shot he brought down severalother birds, but the great feat of all was when he started for moosewith nothing but the watch-spring in the barrel of the gun. Havingrolled it up as tight as he could, fastened it with a piece of twine,and rammed it well into the gun, he set out to find the noble animalupon whose life he had designs. After stalking the woods for severalhours, he came upon the tracks which told him that his prey was notfar off, and in a short while he caught sight of a magnificentcreature, his huge antlers held proudly up and his great eyes full ofdefiance.
For a moment the Baron hesitated. The idea of destroying so beautifulan animal seemed to be abhorrent to his nature, which, warrior-like ashe is, has something of the tenderness of a woman about it. A secondglance at the superb creature, however, changed all that, for theBaron then saw that to shoot to kill was necessary, for the beast wasabout to force a fight in which the hunter himself would be put uponthe defensive.
"I won't shoot you through the head, my beauty," he said, softly, "norwill I puncture your beautiful coat with this load of mine, but I'llkill you in a new way."
With this he pulled the trigger. The powder exploded, the stringbinding the long black spring into a coil broke, and immediately thestrip of steel shot forth into the air, made directly toward the neckof the rushing moose, and coiling its whole sinuous length tightlyabout the doomed creature's throat strangled him to death.
As the Twins' father said, a feat of that kind entitled the Baron to ahigh place in fiction at least, if not in history itself. The Twinswere very much wrought up over the incident, particularly, when onetoo-smart small imp who was spending the summer at the same hotelwhere they were said that he didn't believe it,--but he was an imp whohad never seen a cheap watch, so how should he know anything aboutwhat could be done with a spring that cannot be wound up by a greatstrong man in less than ten minutes?
As for the Baron he was very modest about the achievement, for when hefirst appeared at the Twins' home after their return he had actuallyforgotten all about it, and, in fact, could not recall the incident atall, until Diavolo brought him his own letter, when, of course, thewhole matter came back to him.
"It wasn't so very wonderful, anyhow," said the Baron. "I should notthink, for instance, of bragging about any such thing as that. It wasa simple affair all through."
"And what did you do with the moose's antlers?" asked Angelica. "Ihope you brought 'em home with you, because I'd like to see 'em."
"I wanted to," said the Baron, stroking the Twins' soft brown locksaffectionately. "I wanted to bring them home for your father to use asa hat rack, dear, but they were too large. When I had removed themfrom the dead animal, I found them so large that I could not get themout of the forest, they got so tangled up in the trees. I should havehad to clear a path twenty feet wide and seven miles long to get themeven as far as my friend's hut, and after that they would have had tobe carried thirty miles through the woods to the express office."
"I guess it's just as well after all," said Diavolo. "If they were asbig as all that, Papa would have had to build a new house to get 'eminto."
"Exactly," said the Baron. "Exactly. That same idea occurred to me,and for that reason I concluded not to go to the trouble of cuttingaway those miles of trees. The antlers would have made a veryexpensive present for your father to receive in these hard times."
"It was a good thing you had that watch," the Twins observed, afterthinking over the Baron's adventure. "If you hadn't had that youcouldn't have killed the moose."
"Very likely not," said the Baron, "unless I had been able to do as Idid in India thirty years ago at a man hunt."
"What?" cried the Twins. "Do they hunt men in India?"?
"That all depends, my dears," replied the Baron. "It all depends uponwhat you mean by the word they. Men don't hunt men, but animals, greatwild beasts sometimes hunt them, and it doesn't often happen that themen escape. In the particular man hunt I refer to I was the creaturethat was being hunted, and I've had a good deal of sympathy for foxesever since. This was a regular fox hunt in a way, although I was thefox, and a herd of elephants were the huntsmen."
"How queer," said Diavolo, unscrewing one of the Baron's shirt studsto see if he would fall apart.
"Not half so queer as my feelings when I realised my position," saidthe Baron with a shake of his head. "I was frightened half to death.It seemed to me that I'd reached the end of my tether at last. I wasstudying the fauna and flora of India, in a small Indian village,known as ah--what was the name of that town! Ah--something likeRathabad--no, that isn't quite it--however, one name does as well asanother in India. It was a good many miles from Calcutta, and I'd beenliving there about three months. The village lay in a small valleybetween two ranges of hills, none of them very high. On the other sideof the westerly hills was a great level stretch of country upon whichherds of elephants used to graze. Out of this rose these hills, veryprecipitously, which was a very good thing for the people in thevalley, else those elephants would have come over and played havocwith their homes and crops. To me the plains had a great fascination,and I used to wander over them day after day in search of newspecimens for my collection of plants and flowers, never thinking ofthe danger I ran from an encounter with these elephants, who were veryferocious and extremely jealous of the territory they had come throughyears of occupation to regard as their own. So it happened, that oneday, late in the afternoon, I was returning from an expedition overthe plains, and, as I had found a large number of new specimens, I wasfeeling pretty happy. I whistled loudly as I walked, when suddenlycoming to a slight undulation in the plain what should I see before mebut a herd of sixty-three elephants, some eating, some thinking, someromping, and some lying asleep on the soft turf. Now, if I had comequietly, of course, I could have pa
ssed them unobserved, but as I toldyou I was whistling. I forget what the tune was, The Marsellaise orDie Wacht Am Rhein, or maybe Tommie Atkins, which enrages theelephants very much, being the national anthem of the British invader.At any rate, whatever the tune was it attracted the attention of theelephants, and then their sport began. The leader lifted his trunkhigh in the air, and let out a trumpet blast that echoed back from thecliff three miles distant. Instantly every elephant was on the alert.Those that had been sleeping awoke, and sprang to their feet. Thosethat had been at play stopped in their romp, and under the leadershipof the biggest brute of the lot they made a rush for me. I had no gun;nothing except my wits and my legs with which to defend myself, so Inaturally began to use the latter until I could get the former towork. It was nip and tuck. They could run faster than I could, and Isaw in an instant that without stratagem I could not hope to reach aplace of safety. As I have said, the cliff, which rose straight upfrom the plain like a stone-wall, was three miles away, nor was thereany other spot in which I could find a refuge. It occurred to me as Iran that if I ran in circles I could edge up nearer to the cliff allthe time, and still keep my pursuers at a distance for the simplereason that an elephant being more or less unwieldy cannot turn asrapidly as a man can, so I kept running in circles. I could run aroundmy short circle in less time than the enemy could run around hislarger one, and in this manner I got nearer and nearer my haven ofsafety, the bellowing beasts snorting with rage as they followed.Finally, when I began to see that I was tolerably safe, another ideaoccurred to me, which was that if I could manage to kill those hugecreatures the ivory I could get would make my fortune. But how! Thatwas the question. Well, my dearly beloved Imps, I admit that I am afast runner, but I am also a fast thinker, and in less than twominutes I had my plan arranged. I stopped short when about two hundredfeet from the cliff, and waited until the herd was fifty feet away.Then I turned about and ran with all my might up to within two feet ofthe cliff, and then turning sharply to the left ran off in thatdirection. The elephants, thinking they had me, redoubled their speed,but failed to notice that I had turned, so quickly was that movementexecuted. They failed likewise to notice the cliff, as I had intended.The consequence was the whole sixty-three of them rushed head first,bang! with all their force, into the rock. The hill shook with theforce of the blow and the sixty-three elephants fell dead. They hadsimply butted their brains out."
"I got nearer and nearer my haven of safety, thebellowing beasts snorting with rage as they followed." _Chapter IV._]
Here the Baron paused and pulled vigourously on his cigar, which hadalmost gone out.
"That was fine," said the Twins.
"What a narrow escape it was for you, Uncle Munch," said Diavolo.
"Very true," said the great soldier rising, as a signal that his storywas done. "In fact you might say that I had sixty-three narrowescapes, one for each elephant."
"But what became of the ivory?" asked Angelica.
"Oh, as for that!" said the Baron, with a sigh, "I was disappointed inthat. They turned out to be all young elephants, and they had losttheir first teeth. Their second teeth hadn't grown yet. I got onlyenough ivory to make one paper cutter, which is the one I gave yourfather for Christmas last year."
Which may account for the extraordinary interest the Twins have takenin their father's paper cutter ever since.