Nor must I forget one evening when all of a sudden out of the darkness
came a tremendous hollow booming, like the beating of war drums or the
bellowing of some strange great beast. At length we identified the
performer as an unfamiliar kind of frog!
XXXI.
THE LOST SAFARI.
We were possessed of a map of sorts, consisting mostly of wide blank
spaces, with an occasional tentative mountain, or the probable course of
streams marked thereon. The only landmark that interested us was a
single round peak situated south of our river and at a point just before
we should cross the railroad at Tsavo Station. There came a day when,
from the top of a hill where we had climbed for the sake of the outlook,
we thought we recognized that peak. It was about five miles away as the
crow flies.
Then we returned to camp and made the fatal mistake of starting to
figure. We ought to cover the distance, even with the inevitable twists
and turns, in a day; the tri-weekly train passed through Tsavo the
following night; if we could catch that we would save a two days' wait
for the next train. You follow the thought. We arose very early the
next morning to get a good start on our forced march.
There is no use in spinning out a sad tale. We passed what we thought
must be our landmark hill just eleven times. The map showed only one
butte; as a matter of fact there were dozens. At each disappointment we
had to reconstruct our theories.
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