Free 10 Gorilla Adventure by Willard Price

The people of this village?’
    ‘No. Our neighbours in the forest. The great tribes without speech.’
    Hal was puzzled. Joro explained. ‘He means the gorillas. Many villages do not believe that the gorillas are animals. They say that they are men who have lost the power of speech.’
    Hal did not argue this point. He was satisfied to let the old chief believe whatever he chose to believe. He had to admit that the gorillas were better men than some men he knew.
    ‘Don’t you ever have trouble with these - tribes of the forest?’ he asked.
    ‘Never. If we leave them alone they never bother us.’
    Hal looked out into the gardens surrounding the village. ‘But I see some of them stealing your vegetables right now.’
    ‘No, no,’ the chief said. ‘Those are not the forest people. Those are baboons. They are only animals. They trouble us very much. They steal our food and we go hungry. And now we have not only hunger but thirst.’
    ‘But you have waterholes.’
    They have dried up,’ the chief said sadly.
    Hal tried to remember something he had read about the baboons and water. These animals didn’t require much water. They usually got enough out of the green stuff that they ate. But they had the rare ability to detect the presence of water beneath the soil. If they became very thirsty they would locate water and dig down to it. But how to make a baboon thirsty enough to want to dig?
    ‘Do you have salt?’ he asked.
    ‘Salt we have. But it only makes us more thirsty.’
    ‘Then it would make a baboon thirsty,’ Hal explained. ‘Perhaps thirsty enough to dig a well for you in your own garden. I’m not promising that it can be done. But would you like us to try?’
    The old man nodded gravely but seemed to have little faith in the experiment. ‘We thank you for your thought,’ he said. ‘It will do no harm to try.’
    ‘We shall need a rope,’ Hal said.
    The chief sent one of his women for a line. She brought a rope that was not a rope. But it would do. It was one of the lianas that hang from the great trees.
    Hal called together his men. ‘Catch the biggest, strongest baboon you can get. Bring him here.’
    The men, puzzling over this strange order, proceeded to the garden. The baboons did not run. Being the boldest of the primates, they kept on rooting out and devouring vegetables even when the men closed round them.
    In the meantime, one of the chiefs women brought a large gourd filled with salt. It was not good clean commercial salt, for it had been scraped from a forest salt pan, but it was good enough for the purpose.
    The baboon was brought. ‘Now, lay it out,’ Hal said, ‘flat on its back - hold its arms and legs down - prise its jaws apart with that stick.’
    The baboon struggled but the odds against it were too great. Hal began to force-feed it with salt. He felt a little guilty for doing this even to a baboon but after all, the animal should pay for damaging the gardens. Hal did not stop until the gourd was empty and the baboon was full.
    ‘All right. Let him go.’
    Perhaps any other animal would have made straight for the forest. The baboon only joined its companions, then turned and made faces at the men who had tormented it. How long it would take for the salt to do its work, Hal did not know. Perhaps the experiment would not work at all. The baboon sat sulking among the vegetables. With a stuffed stomach, he had no desire to eat more.
    Hal waited and wondered. When the animal became thirsty he might wander off into the forest, perhaps many miles away, before he began to dig for water.
    But Hal didn’t think so. A baboon rarely goes off on its own. Besides, the ground in the forest would be full of roots and digging would be difficult if not impossible. In the garden the soil was soft, and clear of roots and stones.
    It was nearly an hour before the baboon rose and began to explore. Then he walked about with his head down, using whatever mysterious senses elephants, rhinos,