THE SCOUT.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 29, Issue 43, 5 June 1917, Page 2

THE SCOUT.

AN UNCBNSORED ACCOUNT OF A BATTLE ROYAL IN ANT-LAND.

The little people of the grass were very busy that morning under the glorious sunshine, round their fortified town. Little it might seem to us, but it probably contained as many lives —not souls hardly as many a big human city does. It belonged to the ants of the field, the tiny people who were always busy. Secrecy they craved, but it has its drawbacks. For instance, one ant, prospecting along a little-used sidetrack alone, suddenly halted, as one who discovers a footprint upon a desert island, She had not, of course ; she had merely crossed a trail, hut to her it was the same thing. That trail—and she could follow it as sure as any hound— spelt trouble. Carefully and cautiously she followed it into the grass. She must have had the pluck of several bulldogs, for she knew who owned the trail, and it was like a man following a tiger into thick jungle. The track led back towards the ant city. Then it stopped on the edge of the clearing the ants had cut around the city’s outermost fortifications , then turned off and ran back to the path again, and the ant, stepping out nearly ran on top of another ant a very giant—who was watching the city from the cover of the grass jungle. In a flash the other had spun about and rushed at the little ant, but that small one dodged and raced back towards the city. She did not fear to fight, mark you, but she had news. The giant stopped at the edge of the jungle and watched the small one vanish into one of the outer gates. Then she turned, too, and fled. She also bad news. Along the field she hurried, far beyond the longest roads and paths of the small ant people, following her own scent backwards, as a man follows his blazed trail —back and back, till she came to the roadway ; then through the opposite hedge, where sho dived into a hole guarded by an ant like herself.

An hour later that same big ant—the scout—might have been seen issuing once again from that hole, and behind her came an army, no less. The army was of big ants like herself, following her in serried silent phalanxes. Every warrior, every Amafcon, seemed to know precisely what to do, and, like clockwork, did it.

Back through the hedge marched that army, led by the scout, who was simply once again following her own trail —as, indeed, most of the army was ; across the road, into the opposite hedge, where a young mouse was so foolish as to pause to parley with them, but very soon was glad to run away, and out into the field. As the army came to the roads of the field-ants, the scout, who was guiding them, must have said something, for scouts ran out in a screen, and at the head of a large advanceguard she herself hurried. They did their best to slay whomsoever they met, but it was no good; some got away to carry the news, and that advance-guard found the whole fighting army of the field-ants drawn up outside the city to receive it, and then things happened. Outnumbered by about twenty to one, the guide and her companions-in-arms fought like demons, and like —ants. With her pointed shears of jaws, she shore through body after body of the swarming foe that gnashed like a wolf-pack about her. But by the time she had lost one leg, and looked like adding two others to it, and saw the advancguard giving back on every hand, she hacked her way clear, and, racing back to the main army, who had got into difficulties among a maze of paths, rushed them along, waving her feelers aloft.

Then the fleld-ants died—not in ones and twos, but in dozens—till finally they broke and fled back to the bowels of their city. The day was won.

Into the bowels of that city the scout and the army could not follow them, however ; they were too big to' get down the tuhnels. Nothing for it, therefore, but to eflect a breach with jaws and muscle, and that was done.

The army of invasion poured in, leaving a strong guard at every entrance to stop retreat. Some time later, as the sun was setting, the army of invasion came out again, marching as before, but eaoh individual carrying a burdena baby field-ant, who was to be reared and made into a slave.