13 Tiger Adventure

by Willard Price

  There was snow below him, snow above him, snow packed firmly around him. He was suffocating for lack of air. He tried to get to the surface. He was swimming, moving arms and legs in a crawl. The surface must be very far away. The roar of flying rocks was terrific. Now and then rocks battered him or he ran into rocks that were not flying, and they knocked out of him what little breath he had.

  He tried to inhale, but nothing came except snow. He continued to fight for air.

  Now he was pinned under a block of ice. He remembered a story about someone who chiselled his way up through such a block with his pocket knife. Vic had no knife, nor did he have enough strength left to do any chiselling.

  Now he was out from under the block and swimming again but so weak that he could give up and die.

  He had never thought that snow could make a noise, but now the snow was going boom, boom, boom, like a stampede of cattle. Half the time his heels were over his head and all the time he was spinning or rolling and the snow was exploding all about him. With the snow in his eyes he was blind, and so dazed that he thought he was already dead.

  He was hanging over a precipice. He kept very quiet, because one movement might send him over the cliff. If he slipped and fell, what did it matter? Whether he died on top of the precipice or at the bottom, it was all the same.

  The avalanche had come to a stop. Hal and Roger began to look for Vic, Below them there was nothing but snow, snow, and more snow. There was not one sign of human life down there. Temba and his men had survived, and they helped hunt for Vic.

  Hal had something in his pocket that was called an ‘electronic homing device’. It was designed for use after an avalanche to detect the presence of any person buried in the snow. Now was the time to make use of it.

  He walked slowly down, holding the device. If there was anyone beneath him, the thing would go beep, beep, beep. It was hard going because the snow was not firm. It had been churned into powder by its rush down the mountain.

  Roger went with him and also Temba and a Sherpa carrying a shovel. So far, there was nothing to shovel. They went a hundred feet down the slope, then another hundred, and another. The beeper was silent. After they had gone down a thousand feet they were about ready to give up. But Hal insisted upon continuing. On down to the fourteen-thousand-foot level. Here they stood on the edge of a precipice. There was a thousand-foot drop from the edge.

  ‘I’m afraid he’s not alive,’ said Hal. ‘If he went over that cliff and fell a thousand feet, he’s dead.’

  Just then the beeper began to beep.

  ‘He’s right here,’ shouted Roger. Hal grabbed the shovel and began to dig. He was encouraged by the beeper which kept on playing its little tune.

  At last the shovel poked something that wasn’t snow. And it was too soft to be a rock. Feverishly, Hal dug around the soft thing until it was evident that this was Vic Stone in person, but perhaps Vic Stone dead.

  His body was half over the edge of the precipice. His eyes were closed. His face was very pale, and badly scratched by rocks.

  Hal took Vic’s pulse. He could only faintly feel the beat of the pulse, but it was enough to tell him that Vic was alive.

  They lifted his unconscious body out of the snow and, locking their hands beneath it, they carried it up three thousand feet to the place where the tents had been, and still were, though now they were flat on the ground.

  The Sherpas had begun to erect them and soon it was possible to carry Vic inside and put him into his sleeping bag.

  When he became warm he opened his eyes and seemed surprised to find that he was in a tent, not in heaven or hell. Hal was leaning over him with a cup of hot broth. The broth had to be spooned into Vic’s mouth, for his arms were still numb.

  ‘Who brought me here?’ he asked.

  Temba said, ‘You owe your life to Hal and his little beeper. If it hadn’t been for him you would still be under twenty feet of snow three thousand feet down the mountain. And you would be dead.’

  Hal expected Vic to scold as usual. But Vic, with tears in his eyes, said, ‘You’re really a good guy.’

  Hal was so astonished that he spilled the rest of the broth.

  The one who had tolerated the disaster better than anybody else was the ibex. He was quietened with the sleep-gun and two Sherpas took him on a sled down to Aligar.

  The others went higher, still hoping to find those two unique animals, the snow leopard and the white tiger.

  Chapter 28

  The Snow Leopard

  Today,’ said Hal, ‘we want to get a snow leopard. The best ones are in Tibet.’

  Roger’s eyes popped. Tibet! We must be hundreds of miles from Tibet.’

  ‘Would you believe that Tibet is only two miles off?’ Hal said.

  ‘No, kind sir,’ retorted Roger, ‘I wouldn’t believe it.’

  ‘Well, it’s true. There’s a trail between these peaks to Tibet. We’re not actually going into Tibet because we have no visa. But Temba tells me that some of the wild Tibetan animals wander over to the Indian side. So, that’s where we’ll look for them. Two that we especially want are the snow leopard and the yak.’

  There are plenty of yaks down at Aligar.’ said Roger. There are yak pastures, full of yaks. The Sherpas use them to do all their farm work.’

  ‘Right you are,’ said Hal. ‘But those yaks are small. The Tibetan yak is twice as big. That’s the one we want. One of us will go after the yak and the other will go after the snow leopard.’

  ‘Me for the snow leopard,’ said Roger.

  ‘But that’s the dangerous one.’ Hal warned.

  ‘I know.’ said Roger. ‘I’ll take one of your tear-gas pistols. And a sleep-gun. And a sled with a couple of our Sherpas to pull it - in case we find a snow leopard and put it to sleep, they can take it down to Aligar.’

  Hal did not like the idea of his brother tackling any leopard, the most ferocious of all cats.

  ‘Very well, since you are determined, you bring home a snow leopard and I’ll try to produce a big yak.’

  ‘Where do I come in?’ said Vic.

  Hal stared. It was the first time Vic had ever offered to do anything.

  ‘Vic,’ Hal said, ‘I’d like to have you go down to Aligar and see if the blue bear and the ibex are being properly cared for. They are extremely valuable animals and we don’t want to take any chances of neglect or injury. The mayor is supposed to be taking care of them.’

  So the three boys started out, each in a different direction. First we shall follow the fortunes of Roger, in search of a snow leopard.

  Followed by his two Sherpas with their sled he trudged off close to the line between India and Tibet. They were at an altitude of twenty thousand feet and the air was so thin that Roger often had to stop to breathe. He had forgotten to bring along an oxygen bottle. The Sherpas did not mind the altitude for they had grown up on the mountain.

  There was no sun this morning and the wind was ice cold. His feet, hands and ears were the first parts of him to turn numb with frostbite. He was becoming ‘altitude-sick’. He staggered, and fell down in the snow. He refused to let the Sherpas help him and struggled to his feet and walked on. The mountainside was very steep here and it would be easy to fall. In that case you would keep on falling for thousands of feet and probably wind up dead.

  It would be safer if they were roped together. A Sherpa produced a rope and tied it first to Roger, then, at a distance of six feet, to the other Sherpa, and finally, after another six feet, to himself.

  Now, if Roger began to fall, there were two strong men to hold him back. The Sherpas had no idea that they would be the ones to fall. They had so much confidence in their own ability that they did not wear crampon spikes on the soles of their boots. Roger was not so cocksure. He not only wore crampons, but he carried an ice-axe and frequently plunged the point of it into the ice in order to keep himself from slipping.

  All of a sudden he heard a yell behind him and the two Sherpas shot downhill like rock
ets.

  Roger stabbed the point of his ice-axe into the ice, but the weight of two falling bodies on the rope tied about his waist nearly yanked him loose in spite of crampons and axe.

  So he saved the Sherpas from what might have been a fatal fall of thousands of feet. They clambered back to his level and from that moment regarded him with more respect. He was just a boy, but a tough one.

  Roger had only a moment to think how smart he was. The jolt he had suffered had shaken off his snow glasses. Then he had accidentally stepped on them and broken them to bits. To complete his misery the sun, which had been hiding behind clouds, suddenly burst out in its full glory and fury. The glare of sunlight on snow and ice was too much for his eyes. He blacked out. For a time he sat in the snow.

  When he dared to open his eyes he saw double, even triple. His feet, when he looked at them, were a mile away. His mind played him tricks. He was in the Gir Forest capturing a golden langur. No, he was in a Tibetan monastery looking at Yeti relics. He could see only dimly. Although the sun was blazing, it seemed to him that everything was a dark grey.

  The Sherpas knew what to do in a case of snow blindness. They would cover their eyes with their own hair so that they could just see out between hairs, and most of the glare, terrific at these altitudes, was cut off. Roger’s hair was not very long, but they managed to get a few wisps of it over his eyes and at once he felt a great relief.

  Frostbite played a peculiar game. At first his toes and fingers tingled painfully. Then the pain gradually disappeared and he thought he had beaten the frostbite.

  The fact was that the frostbite had beaten him and had made his feet and hands and nose so numb that he no longer felt the least pain. When he got up and tried to walk it seemed as if his feet had been amputated and replaced by wooden pegs.

  The Sherpas were making a peculiar call. It sounded exactly like the voice of a leopard. If a snow leopard were anywhere near by, it would answer that call and come close.

  It was a good plan and it worked. There came an answering call from behind a great rock. Then the animal leaped to the top of the rock.

  What a sight he was. Not at all like the leopards of the Gir Forest. He was snow white except for a few black rings here and there. His whiskers and moustache and chest were perfectly white. He was about five feet long without the tail, and the tail was another five feet long. It looked more like a python than a tail. It was as thick through as that serpent and was the same width all the way to the end. It must have been pretty heavy to carry around, but it was beautiful.

  The animal’s belly was pure white, without rings. The fur was long, thick and soft, a lovely warm overcoat against the chill air of twenty thousand feet.

  The great tail was switching back and forth angrily. He had heard the call of a mate and now he had found no mate, only these impertinent humans. He tensed himself for a spring. But he did not spring because at that instant Roger used his tear-gas pistol. This was enough to stop anything alive, either beast or human. The leopard blasted the air with his roar, blinked, and shook his great head. He leaped from the rock towards his tormentors. But at the same moment Roger fired his sleep-gun and the dart penetrated the snow-white patch between rings on the animal’s flank. The boy and the Sherpas jumped out of the way and the leopard found nothing but snow and ice when he landed. He was still full of fire and made for the boy who should be the easiest one to kill. Roger stopped him with another shot of tear gas. The big cat collapsed within two feet of his intended victim.

  One of the Sherpas, thinking that the cat was now asleep, put his foot on the furry body. That nearly cost him his life. The animal turned on him and would have torn him to ribbons if Roger had not fired another dart, and both the tear gas and the sleep medicine conquered one of the finest trophies that the Hunts had ever collected.

  After they were very sure that the dangerous animal was sound asleep it took all three of them to lift his two-hundred-pound body on to the sled. Then they started back to camp. A little later the sleeping cat would be taken to Aligar.

  In the meantime, Hal had found his yak. Of all shaggy animals, this was the shaggiest. Its hair hung down so low that it brushed the ground. The animal stood six feet high and Hal estimated its weight at twelve hundred pounds. Its two long horns looked dangerous but the animal was not a fighter and the horns were merely ornaments, not weapons.

  Its feet were hidden by the long waterfall of fur. It was all dark brown except for a white muzzle.

  It didn’t seem to mind Hal’s close inspection. Hal lifted part of the shaggy coat and discovered that beneath it there was a thick undercoat of warm woolly hair. This, he knew, was plaited into rope by the Tibetans so that a team of yaks would be harnessed by their own hair.

  This animal, however, had never been in a team and was completely wild. It had never been taught to fear man. Its eyesight and hearing were not so good but it had a keen sense of smell. Apparently it had no objection to the smell of this human and so long as it was gently treated the noose that Hall had put over its horns was willingly accepted. Hal led it back to camp. As soon as was convenient it would be taken down to Aligar. Certainly it was a unique wild animal, rarely seen in any zoo.

  Vic, who had been sent down to see if the animals were being properly cared for, reached Aligar without getting lost. He looked at the great blue bear in its cage, and the fine ibex in another.

  He had followed Hal and Roger to the mountains with the intention of stealing their animals. Now he had his opportunity. With the help of some men he could get the two cages up on to the truck and drive away.

  Somehow he had lost his taste for such an an adventure. Hal had trusted him, and Vic couldn’t do anything so mean as steal his animals. Besides, Hal had saved him from certain death. He was grateful.

  This was a new feeling for Vic. He was not used to being grateful for anything. He had always taken great pleasure in being a skunk. He couldn’t understand why he felt differently now.

  After chatting with the mayor and making sure that the animals were being properly fed, he made the long trek back to the camp at twenty thousand feet.

  Chapter 29

  The White Tiger

  Tiger! Tiger! burning bright

  In the forest of the night,

  What immortal hand or eye

  Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

  The boys had one big job left to do. To get a tiger. Not just any tiger. They already had two of the usual sort, with yellow hide and black stripes.

  These were valuable animals, but the most valuable was yet to be captured. It was the remarkable white tiger.

  There were said to be some on the white slopes of the Himalayas. Since John Hunt had asked for one, the boys could not go home without capturing a white tiger.

  Roger had brought in a snow leopard. Hal was not feeling well.

  Then it’s up to me,’ said Vic.

  ‘But you can’t do it alone.’ said Hal.

  Vic said, ‘I can try.’

  Hal and Roger could hardly believe their ears. It was unusual for Vic to try to do anything, except to steal animals.

  ‘Go ahead and try,’ said Hal. ‘Don’t be discouraged if you fail. There are very few white tigers - we haven’t seen one yet.’

  Vic set out to find a white tiger. All day he searched, with no result. Another day, and another and another he hunted in vain. He kept at it. Hal had given him his life-he must give Hal a white tiger.

  One day, passing a rock cave, he heard a curious snuffling sound inside.

  He stopped and looked in. At first he could see nothing because his eyes were half blinded by sun and snow. But his ears did better than his eyes. A tremendous roar seemed to shake the cave.

  Vic retreated. If only he could find a tree or bush to hide behind. But there was nothing of the sort at this altitude. So he simply stood still.

  Gradually his eyes became adjusted to the darkness and he saw what he had been looking for. It was a white tiger of tremendous s
ize. He had heard that the world’s biggest tiger was the Siberian, fourteen feet long. This must be the next biggest. What a trophy, if he could get it.

  The hide of this remarkable animal was white with a few black stripes, not yellow and black like most tigers.

  As his vision improved he could make out five little blobs around the monster’s feet. They were white tiger cubs, and this must be their mother. She would fiercely defend her cubs even if it meant her own death.

  It would have been prudent for Vic to walk away. But he was not prudent when he saw the chance of getting this great tigress and her cubs. The cubs were really as important as the mother. There were probably both males and females among these youngsters, and there was a good chance that on John Hunt’s wild animal farm the line of white tigers could be continued down the years. Therefore every one of these five was precious.

  Tigers seldom attack unless disturbed. As long as Vic stood still the tigress did not move.

  There was a growl behind him and he wanted to run but mastered his fear and remained quiet. Another tiger passed him and entered the cave. This must be the father of the cubs. But it did something that no good father would do. In spite of the protesting growl of the tigress, the father picked up one of the cubs and ate it.

  Hal had mentioned that this sort of thing could happen.

  Tiger fathers frequently eat their own young. They seem to forget that they are fathers, but the mother never forgets that she is the mother. The tiger seemed ready to continue his meal by devouring another cub.

  Vic could not let this happen. He let fly a jet of tear gas into the face of the tiger who immediately gave up the idea of completing his dinner and ran out of lie cave.

  The tigress looked at Vic with apparent gratitude, and if she had been able to speak she doubtless would have said, Thank you.’

  For the first time Vic noticed that the tigress was standing on three feet and holding up the other paw as if it were too painful to set it on the ground. Was there a thorn in that paw, or the quill of a porcupine?