Jungle Joe/Chapter 11
During the winter of the eleventh year of the sojourn of the jungle people with the great circus of Ringden Brothers, Queenie, the tigress that had been captured by Sahib Anderson and his men in the Malay jungle and that had come to America with the rest of the jungle people, "went bad." She killed her keeper, the man who had taken care of her all that time. She also so badly mauled his successor that the management of the circus decided to get rid of her.
Just across the city of Los Angeles from Pasadena is the great moving-picture headquarters at Hollywood. These wide-awake people are always on the lookout for novelties in moving-pictures, so the manager of the Imperial Co., when he heard that Queenie was to be disposed of, proposed to the manager of the circus that a great tiger-hunt be staged and that his company be allowed to make a movie of it.
He followed up the suggestion with a generous check, so the offer was accepted.
It was a strange array of people who marched on the appointed morning to the jungle that the moving-picture man had planted several years before upon a small river about twenty miles from the city. This jungle was as perfect as man's ingenuity could make it. It contained many of the trees and shrubs of the real Malay jungle, and a troop of monkeys had been let loose in the trees for the occasion.
At the head of this tiger-hunting expedition went the great circus-wagon containing the tigress's cage. This was followed by Joie, with Ali and Sahib Anderson on his back. Also another larger elephant was taken along to help in beating the jungle, and for effect in making the moving-picture.
Mr. Anderson had on the hunting-togs of a rich English sportsman, while Ali was dressed like an Indian prince. The men upon the other elephant had picturesque oriental costumes. There were also ten Malays who had been brought along as jungle-beaters, dressed in the costume of their people and armed with spears and bows.
After them came the moving-picture people with their cameras, as well as half a dozen newspaper men, also armed with cameras.
First the movie people got a picture of the two elephants and their drivers, and also the jungle-beaters.
When everything was in readiness, the wagon containing Queenie was driven to the desired position and the camera men, not without some fear, took their positions and the great beast was released. They got a fine picture of her making for the deep cover, and without showing the wagon from which she had just sprung.
Then they hurried farther along beside the jungle to some open spots and got more pictures of the tigress making her way cautiously through the jungle, with the jungle-beaters on foot and those upon the large elephant slowly pursuing her. Then the camera men went around to the farther end of the thick cover where Mr. Anderson and Ali were waiting upon the back of Joie. This was the point where Mr. Anderson was to shoot the tigress and the hunt was to end.
The camera men were all in position. Mr. Anderson and Ali were ready, and they could hear the shouts of the jungle-beaters.
Mr. Anderson was kneeling in the howdah, so as to give a fine picture, when the great tigress finally broke from cover and charged straight at them. This was fine, and the cameras clicked merrily. But here the unexpected happened, and what was to have been a splendid ending for the hunters was turned into a pandemonium, with every one fleeing for his life. For just as Sahib Anderson's finger pressed the trigger, Queenie threw up her head and turned sharply, so what was intended as a bullet through the head, which would have ended the tiger-hunt then and there, she received a glancing blow upon the shoulder, which did little except to infuriate her.
With a roar that fairly froze the blood of the camera men in their veins, the infuriated tigress charged straight for Joie.
Now while Joie was not gun-shy, and he was a very clever elephant and not easily frightened, yet this was too much for him, so with a wild trumpet of fear he bolted.
Mr. Anderson, who had been kneeling in the howdah so as to help out the picture, lost his balance and fell to the ground, striking upon his right shoulder, and putting his right arm out of commission. This made his rifle, which was the only heavy rifle in the party, useless.
So Queenie charged straight through the party of camera men and newspaper men, merely getting a fusillade of hastily fired revolver-bullets, which did little harm.
Most of the spectators did not wait to see what happened, but ran for their lives, some of the newspaper men even throwing away their cameras.
Twenty seconds later the tigress was disappearing into the jungle a score of rods away.
"Go after her, Ali! You and Joie keep her in sight," cried Mr. Anderson, who had gained his feet by this time, and had come up to Joie and Ali, who did not retreat very far, as Ali had gotten Joie under control after the first mad dash. "All right. You follow on as fast as you can. I will try to keep her in sight."
Luckily for Joie and Ali, the small
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improvised jungle ended about fifty rods farther up the river, so the tigress was there obliged to come out into the open. She then followed along the small river for a couple of miles and then struck off across the fertile farming land through a forty-acre lot of asparagus. After that a prune-orchard was traversed. Then another asparagus-field, and this was followed by an orange-grove, and then another prune-orchard.
Some of the farm laborers gazed fearfully at the great tigress pursued by the elephant, while others fled precipitately. But the people in this country so near to Hollywood were used to strange sights, so most concluded that it was a moving-picture stunt.
Finally Queenie came to a desert, the same desert that Ali and Ben Abi had traversed on the great race, only this was much farther out from the city. Faint and far away to the northeast Ali could see a distant mountain. The tigress was quick to discover it also, and headed straight in that direction. Probably to her wild intelligence the distant mountain looked like a place of refuge from her pursuers.
No one joined in the chase. In fact, Ali and Joie and the tigress passed so quickly that there was no time to organize a hunt.
On, on, all through the afternoon they raced towards the mountain, the tigress leading the way and Joie and Ali following doggedly. All the tiger-hunting instincts of Joie's ancestors seemed to come to his help in this race. It did not deter Ali because he did not know just where he was going, or into what dreadful adventure the pursuit might lead him. The Sahib was Ali's general, and good soldiers always obey their generals. Besides, Ali did not doubt that the Sahib would soon organize a party and follow. He might even now be just behind them a few miles away. He had never failed him yet and he would not this time. He was a wonderful man.
Just as the long purple shadows of sunset were stretching across the Californian desert, the tigress reached the mountain towards which she had been bending her steps, closely followed by Ali and Joie.
Here she left the highway and struck into a canyon leading at right angles to the road. Joie and Ali followed, although the going was rough. For half an hour they followed the great cat along the canyon through the growing darkness. Finally the trail led down a steep declivity where Joie could barely keep his feet. But as the descent was only about forty feet Ali let him go.
They had covered about half the distance to the bottom when the treacherous shale gave way beneath the elephant's feet and he and Ali went plunging to the bottom. Ali could do nothing to save himself but cling to the howdah for dear life. It was all over in a second, and elephant and boy were piled up in a heap at the bottom of the incline.
Ali felt a queer, sick, faint sensation; the mountains about him faded, and all was dark. He did not know how long he lay there, but when he opened his eyes the stars were blinking above them and Joie was standing over him caressing his face with his trunk. But when Ali tried to rise, his right ankle hurt so that he could not, and his left arm was also nearly helpless.
For hours he lay there, alternately nursing his swollen ankle and his shoulder and looking at the stars.
Joie also had a bad limp showing that he, too, had been lamed by the fall.
Ali was tormented with fever and thirst. He could hear a little stream trickling among the rocks near by. Once Joie went to it and slaked his own thirst, but that did not help Ali.
Joie seemed much troubled that Ali did not arise, and caressed him with his trunk and squeaked his endearments in a most affectionate manner.
Thus the weary hours wore away until dawn came and the stars disappeared and the sun's rays fell into their chasm.
Where was the Sahib? Ali knew he would follow on and discover them as soon as he could.
Finally Ali remembered his revolver. Three shots in quick succession was the signal of distress the world over. So he sent the echoes ringing through the canyon. He repeated this signal every half-hour until noon.
All the rest of that day and through the following night Ali and Joie were marooned in the canyon.
About nine o'clock in the evening Ali fell into a fitful sleep during which he had a bad dream. In a way this dream was like the one he had had eleven years before in the bamboo thicket in Malay land; the time when the great tiger had crept upon him to kill him and eat him. Then, the danger had been on his own level, but now it was from above. He seemed to be able to look backward over his head and see the great cat creeping from boulder to boulder on the cliffs above. Finally it came to the edge and glared down upon him with fiery eyes. He tried to move or cry out, but could not stir a muscle. He thought the tigress was on their trail and was crouching at the top of the cliff to spring upon them. Ali's dream was partly real and partly true, for a great cat was creeping upon them, but it was not the tigress but a mountain lion.
Joie was very much awake and alert and saw the great beast crouching on the ledge ready for the spring and was ready for it. He caught the lion full upon his tusks and threw it high in air and then caught it by his trunk as it fell and brought it down upon the ground with a terrible thud.
His roar of rage awoke Ali who came to his assistanee with two shots from his revolver while the lion was still stunned. The shots, together with Joie's mauling, soon finished the lion. Joie was so infuriated because his trunk had been seratched that he would have stamped the lion into jelly but Ali would not let him, as he wished to keep the trophy.
The following noon, after Ali had begun to despair of their rescue, he heard three shots in quick succession and he joyously answered the signal in kind. Ten minutes later the Sahib, accompanied by a dozen cow-punchers, rode down the canyon and discovered Ali and Joie.
Joie and Ali had bagged a lion all un aided and were hailed as heroes, but it was not until a week later, when a great hunt was organized and a pack of hounds employed, that Queenie was finally brought to bay in a blind canyon and shot by the Sahib.
Thus ended the great tiger-hunt, the first and only tiger-hunt ever staged in California.