He got man in the form of the smell of meat—­well-seasoned meat, even for Africa!—­what time he was testing a native village, by scent and on the downwind side of him—­and that showed his pluck, my word!—­for honey or fowl.  He detected neither out of the few dozen unspeakable stenches, but struck meat, and following it up-wind, arrived at a piece—­a good big piece—­on the ground among grass.

A civet cat—­who is more civet than cat, by the way—­a small spotted genet—­who looked like an exaggerated ferret in the uncertain gloom—­and the inevitable black-backed jackal—­who must not be confused with him of the side-stripes—­faded out at his approach like steam in a dry atmosphere.  He might have felt proud of this silent respect, if it were not a fact that these gentry, these village frontier haunters, scenting danger, thought it a fine “kink” to let the brave one test it first.

And he did.

To be exact, that ratel touched off the tooth-jawed trap that was the reason for that free meal of high and valuable meat in that place, and when he jumped he didn’t get anywhere.  Also, it hurt his leg abominably.

Then the others reincarnated themselves out of the shadows—­especially the jackal, who shouted “Yaaaa-ya-ya-ya!” and called a friend—­and waited for things to happen.  They were confident things would happen, for Africa is not a good place wherein to get caught in a trap—­there is too much likelihood of being mistaken for the bait!

But they might as well have seen a thunder “portent” captured by the tail as this ratel by the leg; for, instead of instantly and foolishly abandoning himself to the frenzy of unthinkable fear—­the fear of being trapped is the greatest of all to a free, wild thing—­as practically all others would have done, he said nothing at all; he failed to lose his head; and, to crown all, he instantly, coolly, slowly, viciously, and doggedly set himself to struggle, with a grim persistence that was amazing.  And, moreover, from that instant he never left off.

A striped hyena, seemingly in lifelong terror of his own shadow, turned up by magic—­or perhaps he heard the snap of the trap.  Seven times he bolted, for no earthly reason that one could see, before finally gaining courage to snap at the ratel at the very end of his reach.  It was the kind of snap that would take half a man’s face away, and not nice to meet when you are trapped.  The ratel, however, came calmly at the hyena, trap and all, and so nearly got his own trap-jaws locked home on the unclean one that the hyena was glad to go away.

In the end, thanks to the amazing toughness of his skin, and its looseness, the ratel managed to, as it were, slide the bone of his leg between the jaws of the trap, leaving the skin and fur in, and the rest was mainly determined tugging and strong fang-work.

Then he coolly ate the real bait, and—­the onlookers remembered appointments elsewhere.  None of them, it seemed, was tickled to meet the ratel when he had finished.  He was sure to be crusty; and, anyway, he had bitterly disappointed them all—­he had achieved the apparently impossible, and, worst part of the lot, was not dead.