The Mellette County pioneer. [volume] (Wood, Mellette County, S.D.) 19??-1971, 1918-12-06
IN ODD ALLIANCE
Old Bull Gnu, Driven From Herd,
Found Other Companions.
Wart.Hoe and outcast Ostrich Allowed
10 Travel With Deposed King
Old Bachelors Henceforth,
All of Them.

There was some trouble out in the
glare of the sun ON the bare plain, and
The dust was rising in clouds, L. ST.
NIaris writes in London Answers. 4
single yulture hung over the scene, as
if expecting profit from the inspec-
ton. and a little black-backed jackal,
prick cared and dOglike, was watching
attentively from an unsupported hole
under a wait-a-bit thorn.
Presently forms began TO loom up
among the dust as the cloud itself be-
gan TO move. Beasts, extraordinarily
strange and odd beasts, with shaggy
heads and curved horns, like b%uffaloes,
long. horSelike tails, and sturdy
but graceful, somewhat anteiOpe-like
bodies, began TO loom up indistinctly.
one heavy, massive, very shaggy
beast was fighting with the rest. But
always the heavy, shaggy fellow,
whose very m~assiveneSs spelt age,
gave back slowly on the whole, though
often master in the single contests.
He could not fight the whole herd. and
thar, in fact, vas what he was being
asked 10 do then. In other words, a
piece of wild justice was taking place,
which is to say that, because of his
"c~rustiness," jealousy, lack of chivaIry.
or for some other, or all these reasons,
that old shaggy brute was being kicked
out Of the herd.
As they drew nearer, one saw that
they were blue gnus, which are brfn-
died gnus, which are bearded gnuS,
which are wild beasts, and devilish
wild beasts, too. If you did not know
they We're antelope, yOn would have
said they were buffalo, musk OK, horse
and antelope mixed in one beast. The
result, anyway, was Il queer GUS
toner.
At last the old bull gnu-perhaps he
had been lord Of the herd till then
acknowledged defeat, and, realizing
that he could not do the impossible,
cleared himself cleverly from Il terri
bic miXup among three other bulls,
and set off at n gallop alone.
Then at length he remembered that
1t vas shutdown. and time for all good
wild beasts to take the evening drink,
and he walked to one of those we'll
worn paths which all his kind make
toward water, and slowly plodded his
heavy way to the river.
1t was not a great distance, in and
out among the shattered clumps of
thOrny a%caciaS, and he was not alone,
for as he drew into the river he met
many herds of antelCpes and of zebra,
going TO or coming from the water.
Coming up the bank behind q herd
of gaudy zebra, he was the first to
sight, over a ridge not far off, the two
great, tawny, heavy, giant dog forms,
seen and gone in an instant, dead
ahead. They were lions, and his in.
slant, loud warning snorts said so,
and drew the Zebras' attention TO the
danger, so that they broke away, and
~Stampeded thunderously in the OBJ
posite direction. And again it was he,
galloping clumsily with them, who
SHE'D suddenly at a clump of acacias
and began z~igzagging and swerving
wildly in and Il at top speed, snort
ing madly, so that the zebras scat
tered, and the lioness that had been
told off from her companions to lie
IN wait for the stampeded herds, could
only come out and growl her disap-
pOintment at them.
That night he kept with the zebras,
Feeding with them wherever they went.
and they did not drive him off. Per
maps they realized that as q sentry he
was an asset. And next day an old
"art'hog, as ugly as sin, came and
struck up acquaintance with him, and
later a cock ostrich-all, perhaps, old.
o~ad-tempered outcasts.
Anyway, when the day dawned they
were still together, and the zebra had
gone and, for all / know, they are to-
gether to this day, surely as TRANCE
an alliance as ever faced the battle
OF life-blrd, pig and antelope-old
bachelors all.