Tahara: Among African Tribes Part 3

"Come along. There's the cave mouth just ahead."

The chums paused to stare at the tall posts that marked the entrance, each crowned with a polished human skull, then Raal got the torches flaring and pa.s.sed them out to light their way.

d.i.c.k followed close beside Raal, with Dan at his heels, as they plunged into the darkness of the cave. The narrow walls rose straight beside them as they proceeded slowly, and soon d.i.c.k reached the place where the pa.s.sage turned at right angles.

Here the walls were flat surfaces, smoothed and cut artificially. It was no longer a rugged cave but a tunnel.

"Look!" exclaimed Dan. "The walls are all covered with drawings."

d.i.c.k held up his torch to the rocky surface and saw that it was painted with pictures of hunting scenes, men pursuing boars and antelope. The drawings were done in outline and rubbed with some brownish color to make them show clearly.

"These are real Stone-Age pictures," said d.i.c.k as they went deeper and deeper into the cave. "They are like the ones that Umba is painting now in his cave, but they show animals that have died out long ago.

See, here are drawings of extinct animals. There is the sabre-tooth tiger. And look, that is a mastodon with long, curved tusks."

"Jiminy, wouldn't it be wonderful if we could find one or two left over?" said Dan.

"A mastodon? Not likely! The climate has changed since the time that picture was made and those giants died out long ago," d.i.c.k replied.

"Well, anyhow, some day we will go hunting in the high mountains.

Maybe we can find one or two animals that are extinct everywhere else."

"We'll certainly do that little thing," said d.i.c.k. He held his torch closer to the wall to examine a large crack in the surface. It was of rotten, crumbling stone in the fissure and as d.i.c.k pried at it with his flint knife, a handful of fragments dropped out.

Dan stooped to look at them. He rose to his feet with his eyes bright with excitement.

"Do you know what this is?" he exclaimed. "Quartz! Rotten quartz!

And it's heavy with gold."

d.i.c.k stared at the glittering bits of ore and echoed: "Gold!"

"We have stumbled on the place where all that metal comes from," said Dan. "This is a mine. See how the pa.s.sage goes on at a right angle.

It was dug to follow the ledge of gold."

"I wonder. These people don't value gold. They use it the way we use any common metal."

"It's the only metal they know," said Dan. "And it's common here as old iron is with us."

Raal showed no interest in their find. Gold was nothing more to him than lead or tin. He picked up a yellow nugget from the floor and carelessly threw it away again.

"I don't think the tribe hollowed this tunnel for gold," said d.i.c.k. "I believe they cut it for use as a temple. And from the rock that was dumped outside they collected the gold that happened to be mixed with the crushed stone."

"What a find!" Dan repeated over and over. "Why, d.i.c.k, this would lead to a gold rush if the news ever got out. Just like the California and Yukon stampedes."

"I hope n.o.body lets the word get out!"

"If Jess Slythe knew about it, he'd be here with an army of ruffians,"

said Dan.

"And kill off all the tribesmen. It would be a tragedy."

By this time the boys had reached the square dark chamber, with the stone block on which the idol of the ape-G.o.d had once been wors.h.i.+pped.

Here the seams of ore were richer and thicker than in the tunnel and the floor of the room was heavy with glinting particles of yellow.

"Jiminy crickets!" gasped Dan Carter. "Gold dust! Think of it, d.i.c.k, the place is carpeted with gold dust! We're rich! Millionaires!"

But d.i.c.k was not happy. He had not come there to make money but to discover an ancient tribe. The secret of the gold would mean the slaughter of those people, if the word spread.

When he left the cave he had resolved to swear Dan to secrecy, and as for the cave, he would order the natives to wall up its mouth for fear of evil magic.

Following his visit to Wabiti's tribe, d.i.c.k returned to the Taharan village, where he began teaching the natives the simple arts that they could practice.

The women were shown how the wool of wild sheep and the hair of goats could be spun into yarn, and he had primitive looms set up in caves, where cloth was woven.

Veena, the pretty little handmaiden of the old queen, was quick to learn and as she was fond of d.i.c.k and anxious to please him, she was among the first to produce a fine piece of cloth.

Veena blushed with pleasure when he praised it and looked at him shyly, then cast down her blue eyes much like one of the girls at home. With her fair skin and blond hair, Veena might have been his own sister.

The sharp-faced Queen Vanga, was given an occupation to keep her quiet.

Now that she no longer ruled the tribe, Vanga was set to overseeing the women who spun and wove. She did it with relish.

"Work faster, you lazy creatures!" she cried. "Don't stop to gossip!

Don't go to sleep over your work!" and if any of them talked back, she did not hesitate to box their ears. Old Vanga was still a queen.

Dan was especially useful in teaching the men of the tribe something about farming and horse-breaking. Both Dan and d.i.c.k had been in Arizona long enough to see how the cowboys did things and soon the Taharans had learned to make lariats out of their palm fibre ropes.

d.i.c.k and Dan took turns in showing them how to la.s.so and throw the little wild horses, which the tribe owned but had never learned to use.

"Can you beat it!" exclaimed Dan. "These fellows think a pony is good for just one thing. They raise them for food."

"They are rather small to ride," said d.i.c.k, "but I'll tell you what, we'll break a few to the saddle anyhow."

"First we'll have to make a saddle."

"And then we'll show these Taharans what a horse-breaker their king can be."

But that plan had to be delayed for before the horse-breaking could begin a reign of terror swept like a hurricane over the peaceful kingdom of Tahara.

CHAPTER III

ARAB RAIDERS

Dan came running to d.i.c.k Oakwood and cried, "Say it looks to me like a sandstorm over there. Maybe we had all better get under cover!"

Across the desert, far away, d.i.c.k saw a cloud of dust rising into the hot blue sky and called Raal.