The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-01-02
IN ODD ALLIANCE
Old Bull Gnu, Driven From Herd,
 FoW1d Other Companions.
Wart-Hog and Outcast Ostrich Allowed to 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, T. St. Maris writes in London Answers. A single vulture 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 unsuspected hole under 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 buffaloes, long, horselike tails, and sturdy but graceful, somewhat antelope-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 massiveneSs spelt age, gave back slowly on the whole, though often master in the single contests. He could not fight the whole herd, and that, ia fact, was what he was being asked te dc then. In other words, a piece Of wild justice was taking place, which is to say that because of his "crustiness," jealousy, lack of chivalry, 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 br1n- dled gnuS, which are bearded gnus, which are wild beasts, and devilish wild beasts, too. If you did not know they were antelope, you would have said they were buffalo, musk OK, horse and antelope mixed in one beast. The result, anyway, was a 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 a terri ble mixup among three other bulls, and set eff at a gallop alone. Then at length he remembered that
 
 wild beasts to take the evening drink, 1 and he walked to one of those we'll worn paths which all his .kild make toward water, and slowly plodded his heavy way to the river.
 It was not great distance, In and out among the shattered clumps of thorny acacias, and he was not alone, | for as he drew into the river he met many herds of anteiopes and of zebra, ] going to or coming from the water. i Coming up the bank behind a herd | of gaudy zebra, he was the first to sight, over q ridge not far off, the two i great, tawny, heavy, giant dog forms, seen and gone in an instant, dead ahead. They were lions, and his in' stant, loud warning shorts said SO and drew the zebras' attention to the danger, so that they broke away, and stampeded thunderously in the op i posite direction. And again 1t was he, ! galloping clumsily with them, who shied suddenly at q clump of acacias 1 and began zfgzagging and swerving 1 Wlldiy III ana out dI IOp 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 pdntment at them.
 That night he kept with the zebras feeding with them wherever they went and they did not drive him off. Per haps they realized that as a sentry he was an asset. And next day an old wart-hog, as ugly as sin. came and struck up acquaintance with him, ant later q cock ostrich-all, perhaps, old bad-temperad Outcasts.
 Anyway, when the day dawned they were still together, and the zebra haG gone, and, for all I know. they are to gether to this day, surely as strange an alliance as ever faced the battle of life-bird, pig and antelope | bachelors all.