TALES OF "ADVENTURE

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 78, 3 April 1926, Page 27

TALES OF "ADVENTURE

j An alligator-hunter's story of an exciti i true in every detaU," writes Mr. Temple, ' during many years of hunting, I have actu i It was a beautiful January morning as Weely and I, our breakfast eaten, began to think of the day's work. We were in camp at the mouth of the Lerma River, on the west coast of Mexico, some hundred miles south of the line of the Tropic of Cancer. The night had been so cool that our blankets felt very comfortable as we lay rolled in them on the dry sand, listening to the roar of the surf on the outer bar until we dropped off to sleep. Now, long after sunrise, all Nature was awake. Flocks of green parrots, filling the air with their shrill squawks, flew from their resting-places on one side of the river to their feedinggrounds on the other. A pair of the rare and beautiful roseate spoonbills in their plumage of rose colour and white stalked proudly along the bank intent on their fishing. White ibises, sometimes called "Pharaoh's Chickens," were feeding in the tide-marsh behind the bar on which we were camped. Here and there among them were wild ducks and a few curlew, winter visitors from the north. Wheeling in circles over the water were gulls and man-o'-war birds, their keen eyes searching tbe swift-running tide for tit-bits for their morning meals. In mid-river porpoises showed their black backs as they rolled up against the tide, chasing the shoals of leaping mullet on which *they feed, and the curved back fins of sharks showed occasionally as these tigers of the sea cruised the river mouth in search of prey. These scenes and incidents only called for a passing glance from us, however, for they had been repeated every morning during the two weeks that we had camped on the sandbar. A half-mile away up the stream we could see dozens of grey, log-like shapes basking in the sun on what we had named "The Bar of the Wise Alligator," just below "Tiger Bend" where, in the mud of the swamp, we had seen the fresh tracks of a large jaguar, called by the Mexican hunters ej tig-re. One night, while harpooning alligators with the help of a torch, we had "flashed" his eyes, but he had disappeared before I could shoot. Our business was killing alligators, but as it was full moon, hunting them at night with a light and harpoon had not " been at all a paying game for several nights, as the brilliant moonlight so dimmed our torch that our quarry was not attracted strongly enough to let us get within fair harpoon range. On starlit nights, however, they floated as if dazed by the light, their eyes gleaming fiery red in the reflected glare of the torch, making it an easy matter to harpoon them. By day both alligators and crocodiles, with which the river teemed, were much more wary and hard to approach. If basking on the banks, they saw us and took to the water while we were still too far away to shot. As they swam with only nose and eyes showing they were safe from our attack, for even though one might be killed by a wellplanted shot in the eye, reaching the brain, the ihances were that he would sink in deep water or be carried off by the tide before we could retrieve him. A3 I have said, there were both alligators and crocodiles in the river, and it may be interesting to mention how we could tell them apart, as at a distance they looked almost alike. The alligators, called caimanes by the natives, were dark-coloured—almost black when in the water—and were heavily built, with much larger but blunter teeth than their cousins, the crocodiles. The cocodrilos, or crocodiles, were of a longer, slimmer shape, a chocolate-brown in colour, with reddish, orange-coloured lines between the large scales of their back. Their long, slender jaws w%re armed with a glittering array of small but very sharp and pointed teeth. Their reputation as man-eaters was bad among the natives of the swamps and river, but the caimanes were not much behind them in that respect. "Don Arturo, what shall we do today?" asked Weely, my. canoeman, as he shaded his eyes with his hand and looked up the river at the herd of hideous reptiles that were taking their sunbath far out of rifle range. "Let's go and hunt the Wise Alligator," I said. "He's fooled us every time so far, but maybe we'll have better luck to-day." The big saurian after whom we had named the bar —his favourite baskingplace—was about fifteen feet in length, and with the experience gathered in probably a hundred years of life had laughed to scorn our attempts to bag him with either rifle or harpoon. He was altogether too wise for us. We could always find him at the same place, basking in the tropic sun with a number of smaller ones half his size near by, but he invariably slipped into the river long before we were within rifle-range. At night we recognised him by the extra width between the two glowing balls of fire —the reflection of our torch in his eyes—as he watched us at a safe distance from Weely's deadly harpoon. "Vamanos!" said Weely, with a grin that exposed all his teeth, and he promptly started to get the canoe ready. Presently we pushed off in Weely's dugout, a light and well-modelled little craft, I wth my repeating-rifle and he with his harpoon, a very effective though roughly-made weapon. Crossing the river, we paddled up against the current, keeping close to the bank and taking advantage of the cover it gave us to approach as near as possible to the reptiles basking in the sun. We hoped that, by great good fortune, we might get within sure rifle-range of the "Wise One" and bring him into camp in triumph. As usual, however, luck was against us. Peering cautiously round a little point within easy range, hidden by the mangroves, we saw that the bar was deserted, while the river was dotted with the saurians a3 they swam here and there, only their eyes and noses above the surface. We were so near that we could even pick out the "Wise One" from the others by the greater distance Between his nostrils and eyes. Weely and I exchanged glances in an eloquent silence that meant: "Didn't I tell you so?" Then we made a quiet "fade-out," dropping down-stream to a little cove out of sight from the river, where we held a council of war. At its finish we left the canoe, threading our way silently and cautiously through the tangled gTOwth of the mangrove-covered swamp, until we came to the lower end of the sandbar, still gilent and deserted.

STALKED.

(By A. D. TEMPLE.)

ng experience In Mexico. "It is strictly . "and describes the only occasion on which, aUy been in danger from my auarry." Here we separated, Weely going back into the swamp for a short distance, so as to be within easy reach with his harpoon when I called him, while I planted myself at the edge of the bar, my heels almost in the water. I sat hunched up, with my rifle across my knees, in the shade of some; bushes that made mc not too conspicujus from out on the river, where t..j ' gators" were still in sight. There E :e:aained, as motionless as a tree-stu:np. with the prospect of long hours of watchful waiting ahead of mc. Our plan was baso! on the knuwledge that wild creatures of all kinds will flee from a man in motion, but if seen while at rest, either sitting or standing, they will pay but little attention to him, seeming to consider his figure a mere feature of the landscape in most cases—unless they get his scent. Alligators rely on their eyes and ears to warn them of danger, so we hoped that, if I sat there long enough and still enough, the " Wise One," seeing the coast apparently clear, might return to his favourite basking place and so give mc a chance for a sure shot at short range. Weely was to come directly he heard the crack of the rifle and throw the harpoon into the brute before he escaped in his death-struggle to the river, there to be carried away by the current and lost, as we had lost several others. Nothing much happened for an hour or so. The sun was high overhead, and I was about ready to give up hope and quit, when I saw the nose and eyes of the " Wise One" coming in from midriver directly towards the bar. He landed there with only his head and shoulders exposed, too far away for mc to be sure of placing a bullet where it would cause instantaneous death. He was evidently uneasy and suspicious, for after resting for a few moments he submerged and disappeared, but soon after returned, swimming along the beach and then circling out into the river. At every circle, however, he came nearer and nearer, and suddenly it dawned upon mc that the scaly monster was actually stalking mc! Every time he passed I could see his cold, devilish-looking eyes glaring at mc a3 he tried to make up his mind what new kind of game he waa about to capture. All hunched-up as I was, he evidently could not quite recognise mc as Man, his arch enemy. The audacity of the brute amused mc, but at the same time I realised that I should be in some danger if I allowed him to come too close. By a sudden swift rush he might grab mc in his jaws, or by a powerful stroke of his tail—a common mode of attack —knock mc headlong into the river, leaving him the winner in the game of instinct against reason. I had only a few seconds for thought, for a hunter must be prompt in action if he wants to be successful. As he passed again, broadside on, at less than twenty feet from the rifle-muzzle, I fired, the bullet entering his brain through the eye. When the shot struck him he jumped fully half Ms length out of the water, falling back and spinning round and round with his head as a pivot, lashing the wa.ter into foam. Then he rolled over on to his back and drifted away. "Weelyl Weely!" I yelled. "Quick! I've got him! Come quickly!" To my anger and amazement, however, Weely did not appear. The swift current speedily seized upon the "Wise One," and I saw my prize drifting farther and farther away until it was irretrievably lost. Then, all of a sudden, Weely appeared at my side. "What's the matter with your" I demanded angrily. "What were you about that you didn't come when I called? The 'Wise One' is dead—shot square in the eye. But now weVe lost him, because you were so slow." "Don Arturo,' he stammered with a shamefaced grin, "I—l was watching el tigre." "El tigre?" I shouted incredulously. "Where was he? What was he doing round here?" "He was hunting you, senor, and would have got you if you hadn't fired just when you did," was the surprising' reply. "At your shot he jumped away into the brush and went off." It appeared that Weely had been lying in the swamp some fifty yards away, where he could just see my head and shoulders as I sat at my post. Nothing happened for so long that he became drowsy. All of a sudden something moving in the jungle caught his eye, and as it came nearer he saw it was the jaguar—or as he called it "el tigre"— whose tracks, fully six inches in diameter, we had more than once encountered. As the savage brute glided silently along through the tangled undergrowth, he suddenty caught my wind, paused for a moment and then, crouching almost to the ground, commenced to stalk mc. Meanwhile, completely oblivious to his presence and designs, I was intent on placing a .44 bulleU in the eye of his scaly saurian rival. The jaguar was almost within Reaping distanoe when the rifle cracked out, causing him to bound away at right angles to his former course and vanish in the fastnesses of 'the jungle. Weely never gave mc any satisfactory reason for not having warned mc of my deadly peril, but I always suspected, after a longer acquaintance with him, that he had rather hoped the jaguar would get mc, when, by the law of the wilderness, he would have fallen heir to my rifle, six-shooter, hunting knife, and other valuables. Quien sabe? As we paddled back to camp, I reflected that in spite of the bad opinion that maiden aunts, schoolmistresses and others had of mc in my tender youth. an alligator and a jaguar, unsophisticated dwellers of the wilds, had both agreed that in middle age I looked "good enough to eat."