and now it came, at last, to the pushmi-pullyu's turn for a story. he was very shy and modest and when the animals asked him the following night he said in his very well-bred manner:
"i'm terribly sorry to disappoint you, but i'm afraid i don't know any stories—at least none good enough to entertain you with."
"oh, come on, push," said jip. "don't be so bashful. we've all told one. you don't mean to say you've lived all your life in the african jungle without seeing any adventures? there must be lots of yarns you could tell us."
"but i've mostly led such a quiet life, you see," said the pushmi-pullyu. "our people have always kept very much to themselves. we mind our own business and don't like getting mixed up in scandals and rows and adventures."
"oh, but just think a minute," said dab-dab. "something will come to you.... don't pester him," she whispered to the others. "just leave him alone and let him think—he's got two heads to think with, you know. something will come to him. but don't get him embarrassed, whatever you do."
for a moment or two the pushmi-pullyu pawed the deck of the veranda with his dainty hoofs, as if wrapped in deep thought. then, looking up with one of his heads, he began speaking in a quiet voice, while the other coughed apologetically below the level of the tea-table.
"er—this isn't much of a story—not really. but perhaps it will serve to pass the time. i will tell you about the badamoshi ostrich hunters. you must know, then, that the black peoples have various methods of hunting wild animals. and the way they go about it depends on the kind of animal they mean to hunt. for example, if they want giraffes they dig deep holes and cover them up with light boughs and grass. next, they wait until the giraffe comes along and walks over the hole and falls in. then they run up and catch him. for certain kinds of rather stupid deer they make a little screen of branches and leaves about the size of a man. and the hunter, holding the screen in front of him like a shield, creeps slowly forward until he is close to the deer and then fires his spear or arrow. of course, the stupid deer thinks the moving leaves are just trees being swayed by the wind and takes very little notice, if the hunter is careful to approach quietly enough.
"they have various other dodges, more or less underhanded and deceitful, for getting game. but the one invented by the badamoshi ostrich hunters was perhaps the meanest of them all. briefly, this was it: ostriches, you know, usually go about in small herds, like cattle. and they're rather stupid. you've heard the story about their sticking their heads in the sand when a man comes along, thinking that because they can't see the man, the man can't see them. that doesn't speak very well for their intelligence, does it? no. very well then. now, in the badamoshi country there wasn't much sand for the ostriches to stick their heads in—which in a way was a good thing for them. because there, when a man came along, they ran away instead—i suppose to look for sand. anyhow, the running away saved their lives. so the hunters of badamoshi had to think out some dodge of coming near enough to the ostriches to get among the herd and kill them. and the way they thought out was quite clever. as a matter of fact, i by chance came upon a group of these hunters in the woods one day, practising their new trick. they had the skin of an ostrich and were taking it in turns, putting it over their heads and trying to walk and look like a real ostrich, holding up the long neck with a stick. keeping myself concealed, i watched them and saw at once what their game was. they meant to disguise themselves as ostriches and walk among the herd and kill them with axes which they kept hidden inside the skin.
"now, the ostriches of those parts were great friends of mine—had been ever since they put the badamoshis' tennis court out of business. the chief of the tribe some years before, finding a beautiful meadow of elephant grass—which happened to be my favorite grazing ground—had the fine hay all burnt off and made the place into a tennis court. he had seen white men playing that game and thought he'd like to play it, too. but the ostriches took the tennis balls for apples and ate them—you know, they're dreadfully unparticular about their food. yes, they used to sneak around in the jungles on the edge of the tennis court and whenever a ball was knocked out of the court they'd run off with it and swallow it. by eating up all the chief's tennis balls in this way they put the tennis court out of business, and my beautiful grazing ground soon grew its long grass again and i came back to it. that is how the ostriches happened to be friends of mine.
"so, seeing they were threatened by a secret danger, i went off and told the leader of the herd about it. he was frightfully stupid and i had the hardest work getting it into his head.
"'now, remember,' i said as i was leaving, 'you can easily tell the hunter when he comes among your herd from the color and shape of his legs. ostriches' legs are a sort of gray—as you see from your own—and the hunters' legs are black and thicker.' you see, the skin which the badamoshis were going to use did not cover the hunters' legs. 'now,' i said, 'you must tell all your birds when they see a black-legged ostrich trying to make friends with them to set on him and give him a good hiding. that will teach the badamoshi hunters a lesson.'
"well, you'd think after that everything should have gone smoothly. but i had not counted on the extraordinary stupidity of ostriches. the leader, going home that night, stepped into some marshy, boggy places and got his stupid long legs all over black mud—caked with it, thick. then before he went to bed he gave all the ostriches the careful instructions which i had given to him.
"the next morning he was late in getting up and the herd was out ahead of him, feeding in a pleasant place on the hillside. then that numbskull of a leader—the stupidest cock ostrich of them all—without bothering to brush the black mud off his legs which he had stepped into the night before, comes stalking out into the open space like a king, expecting a grand reception. and he got a grand reception, too—the ignoramus! as soon as the others saw his black legs they passed the word around quickly and at a given signal they set on the poor leader and nearly beat the life out of him. the badamoshis, who had not yet appeared at all, arrived upon the scene at this moment. and the silly ostriches were so busy beating their leader, whom they took for a hunter in disguise, that the black men came right up to them and would have caught the whole lot if i hadn't shouted in time to warn them of their danger.
"so, after that, of course, i saw that if i wanted to save my good but foolish friends from destruction, i had better do something on my own account.
"and this was what i thought i'd do: when the badamoshi hunters were asleep i would go and take that ostrich skin—the only one they had—away from them and that would be the end of their grand new hunting trick.
"so in the dead of night i crept out of the jungle and came to the place where the hunters' huts were. i had to come up from the leeward side, because i didn't want to have the dogs get my scent on the wind. i was more afraid of the hunters' dogs, you see, than i was of the hunters themselves. from the men i could escape quite easily, being much swifter than they were; but dogs, with their sense of smell, are much harder to get away from, even when you can reach the cover of the jungle.
"well, then, coming up from the leeward side, i started searching around the huts for the ostrich skin. at first i couldn't find it anywhere. and i began to think they must have hidden it some place. now, the badamoshis, like a good many black races, when they go to bed for the night, always leave one of their number outside the huts to watch and keep guard. i could see this night-watchman at the end of the row of huts, and of course i was careful not to let him see me. but after spending some time hunting for this ostrich skin i noticed that the watchman had not moved at all, but stayed in the same place, squatting on a stool. then i guessed he had probably fallen asleep. so i moved closer and i found, to my horror, that he was wearing the ostrich skin as a blanket—for the night was cool.
"how to get it without waking him was now the problem. on tiptoe—hardly breathing—i went up and began to draw it gently off his shoulders. but the wretched man had tucked part of it in under him and i couldn't get it free while he was sitting down.
"then i was in despair and i almost gave up. but, thinking of the fate that surely awaited my poor, foolish friends if i didn't get that skin, i decided on desperate measures. suddenly and swiftly i jabbed the watchman in a tender spot with one of my horns. with an 'ouch!' you could hear a mile off, he sprang in the air. then, snatching the bird skin from under him, i sped off into the jungle, while the badamoshis, their wives, the dogs and the whole village woke up in an uproar and came after me like a pack of wolves.
"well," the pushmi-pullyu sighed as he balanced his graceful body to the slight rolling of the houseboat, "i hope never again to have such a race for my life as i had that night. cold shivers run down my spine still whenever i think of it—the barking of the dogs and the shouting of the men and the shrieking of the women and the crashing of the underbrush as my pursuers came tearing through the jungle, hot upon my trail.
"it was a river that saved me. the rainy season was on and the streams were in flood. panting with terror and fatigue, i reached the bank of a swirling torrent. it was fully twenty-five feet wide. the water was simply raging down it. to try and swim it would be madness. looking backward, i could see and hear my pursuers close upon my heels. again i had to take desperate measures. drawing back a little to get space for a run and still clutching that wretched ostrich skin firmly in my mouth, i rushed at the river at full speed and leaped—as i have never leaped in my life—clear across to the further bank. as i came down in a heap i realized i had only just been in time, for my enemies had already come up to the river on the side that i had left. shaking their fists at me in the moonlight, they were trying to find a way to get across to me. the dogs, eagerest of all, tried, some of them, to swim; but the swift and raging waters swept them down the stream like corks and the hunters were afraid to follow their example.
"with a thrill of triumph, i dropped the precious ostrich skin before their very eyes into the swirling river, where it quickly disappeared from view. a howl of rage went up from the badamoshis.
"then i did something i've been sorry for all my life. you know how my people have always insisted on good manners and politeness. well—i blush to recall it—in the excitement of the moment i stuck out both my tongues at the baffled foe across the river. there was no excuse for it—there never is for deliberate rudeness. but it was only moonlight and i trust the badamoshis didn't see it.
"well, though i was safe for the present, my troubles were not over by any means. for some time the badamoshis now left the ostriches alone and turned their whole attention to hunting me. they badgered my life out. as soon as i had moved from one part of the country to get away from their pestering they'd find out where i was and pursue me there. they laid traps for me; they set pitfalls; they sent the dogs after me. and although i managed for a whole year to keep away from them, the constant strain was very wearing.
"now, the badamoshis, like most savage peoples, are very superstitious. and they are terribly afraid—in the way that too-too was speaking of last night—of anything they can't understand. nearly everything they can't understand they think is a devil.
"well, after i had been hunted and worried for a long time, i thought i would take a leaf out of their own book, so to speak, and play something like the same trick on them as they had tried to play on the ostriches. with this idea in mind, i set about finding some means to disguise myself. one day, passing by a tree, i found a skin of a wild ox spread out by some huntsman to dry. this i decided was just the thing i wanted. i pulled it down and, lowering one of my heads, i laid one pair of my horns flat along my back—like this—and drew the cowhide over myself, so that only one of my heads could be seen.
"it changed my appearance completely. moving through the long grass, i looked like some ordinary kind of deer. so, disguised in this manner, i sauntered out into an open meadow and grazed around till my precious badamoshis should appear. which they very shortly did.
"i saw them—though they didn't know it—creeping about among the trees on the edge of the meadow, trying to get near without scaring me. now, their method of hunting small deer is this: they get up into a tree and lie along a lower branch, keeping very still. and when the deer passes under the tree they drop down upon his hindquarters and fell him to the ground.
"so presently, picking out the tree where i had seen the chief himself go and hide, i browsed along underneath it, pretending i suspected nothing at all. then when the chief dropped on what he thought was my hindquarters, i struck upward with my other horns, hidden under the cowhide, and gave him a jab he will remember the rest of his days.
"with a howl of superstitious fright, he called out to his men that he had been stuck by the devil. and they all ran across the country like wildfire and i was never hunted or bothered by them again."
everybody had now told a tale and the arctic monthly's prize story competition was declared closed. the first number of the first animals' magazine ever printed was, shortly after that, issued and circulated by swallow mail to the inhabitants of the frozen north. it was a great success. letters of thanks and votes on the competition began pouring in from seals and sea-lions and caribou and all manner of polar creatures. too-too, the mathematician, became editor; dab-dab ran the mothers' and babies' page, while gub-gub wrote the gardening notes and the pure foods column. and the arctic monthly continued to bring happiness to homes and dens and icebergs as long as the doctor's post office existed.
