TITLE PAGE     GERMAN    

DANGER ZONE

Bobby Box realised that one doesn't actually have to be poor to be able to produce verse. The wealthy poet with a fortune of 1,000 dollars had composed poems as he marched along enraptured and the muse of verse - who to his mind could only look like Marygold - had often kissed him. He now found himself making his way through romantic cactus groves. The thorny opuntia with their grotesque shapes took on extraordinary forms in his imagination and tall cacti stretching upwards like huge organ pipes gave rise to the strangest hallucinations. He heard resounding chords echoing from the vaults of heaven and saw the towering plants being illuminated like Bengal fireworks by this powerful music. But all at once - he did not know what had happened - it all disappeared and he was standing in an endless wilderness. In the distance, blue and green lightening split a rocky mountain range and the thunder growled in triumph. There was a smell of quartz and ozone. Every flash of lightening discharged energies hidden in the breast of the poet which now shone like coloured rays from his nose, mouth and ears. Bobby was quite confused. - He could hear the earth tremble under the hoofs of a herd of wild buffaloes stampeding in the distance. When Bobby turned around in fright, a breeze blew off his fine bowler hat and carried it some distance from him. The poet hurried after it, but couldn't believe his eyes: his hat had suddenly grown legs and was leaping away from him. Bobby quickly seized the runaway with the handle of his walking stick, and now he saw that there was a large bull-frog sitting in his hat, croaking and wriggling desperately. Then the croaking came from all sides and Bobby now noticed that the whole plain was full of bull-frogs whose eyes were all turned in one direction, watching the storm. So that was it: his headgear had fallen on to one of them. Bobby laughed. But the laugh froze on his lips - the herd of buffaloes had turned around and the leader of the herd, a creature the size of a mountain, was thundering straight towards him.

It was a difficult situation. The policy had to be: "Bobby, stand your ground!" In a flash of inspiration, the poet said to himself: "With nimble, disjointed verses it should be possible to deal with this cumbersome, unshapely, hairy plum pudding!" With one jump he landed at the tail end of the buffalo and delivered a firm blow from behind with his stick. The beast rolled its eyes and turned around towards Bobby, snorting furiously. But he, undaunted, held on to the tail, kept on whacking the creature and continued to produce verse. So they began to go around in circles, as if a dog were biting its own tail.

A bull-fight like you find in Spain
Ne'er mind the odds - just make the gain.
I drive the creature round and round
Until it lies upon the ground.
The plan was mine, my fear defied
Torero! Look! The bull has died.

The buffalo had got so dizzy that it lay down on the sand and shook its enormous head to and fro. Bobby bent down, reaching for his hat and bag. In so doing, he extended his rear end to the buffalo, which the beast simply could not resist: it sprang to its feet and gave Bobby a good shove. Fffffff - onk! The bull had broken its own record.

Bobby felt the blood pounding in his ears - he was thrown high up on to a mountain plateau. Although the poet had to endure this unpleasant sensation for quite a while in head and ears, he nevertheless took the opportunity to study the splendid rocky landscape. He noticed that he was feeling hungry. He lit himself a little fire and took the provisions out of his bag which he had brought with him from Brack Bell. He took a hearty bite out of a leathery piece of beef and looked thoughtfully at the rising moon. - Hearty? -

Hearty? - E'en at this dark hour?
Such wonder works the word amour!
My heart once cold as cinder
It has set ablaze like tinder.
And moon and stars so far, behold,
Spell out the letters M-a-r-y-g-o-l-d.

For a long time, Bobby sat studying the face of the full moon which reflected Marygold's image to him as in a magic mirror. Then, overwhelmed by tiredness, he fell asleep. Hadn't he closed his eyes? Down there in the plain he saw the buffalo herd being deployed in military formation. The leading animal was showing the others how to circle, and the whole herd imitated its movements with frightening speed. The circular movements created clouds of dust which finally made the whole herd invisible. Bobby turned over on his other side and covered his eyes with his arm. Now nothing more distracted him and he hoped to be able to sleep. But his ears registered a variety of noises and voices all the more sharply. He heard the distant growling of a grisly bear, the rattling of a rattlesnake, the scratching and gnawing of a polecat. But it was the sound of the wings of an enormous bird of prey beating slowly in the air which made him sit up with a jerk. Bobby opened his eyes wide, but instead of a bird, he saw a ragged black cloud about to darken the moon. It looked like sinister Mr Jim making off towards the east. Bobby saw the familiar beak-shaped nose clearly outlined against the bright disk of the moon.

Bobby leaped quickly to his feet; an ominous presentiment took hold of him. His Marygold was in danger - he had to go to her rescue without delay. - He closed his travelling bag and failed to notice that the cunning rattlesnake, whose rattling he had heard as he dosed, had crept into it and was now coiled up hidden among the contents of the bag.

The new day dawned - a thin trail of smoke arose from the dying fire - Bobby made off. Three Indians equipped for war with bows and arrows, knives and tomahawks crept up on him soundlessly zig-zag-zug! Bobby went on his way taking steep, narrow paths through rugged rocky gorges, quite unaware of the danger. The Indians remained on the heels of the paleface like cats. - Not a sound disturbed the solemn stillness. The world was taking a holiday! Bobby felt a wave of gratitude arise in his poet's heart:

Oh, lovely nature's peace and quiet -
Let us escape the old world's riot,
Then...

Whizz! - a poisoned arrow penetrated the poet's bowler hat. Bobby couldn't work out what it was - a stone? a bird? He turned round, looked and listened - not a person, not a bird to be seen. No matter! Bobby continued on and once again all sorts of things inspired him to compose more verse:

Romantic sentiments enthrall
One's spirit at this waterfall.
Even the blossoms raise their glance,
Watching the droplets' sprightly dance.

Meanwhile the Indians had adopted a strategy of encirclement. Zig-zug-zag! The third man had climbed up to the top of a cliff and was poised over Bobby's head. The redskins were now surrounding the young man. One of the two positioned behind him now raised his tomahawk and threw it - chop! - at Bobby from behind. But it so happened that just at that moment he had bent down to pick a few flowers. The sharp hatchet flew over Bobby and the third Indian, who was peering out from behind a rock, got hit right in the middle of his forehead. He fell without a sound into his hiding place and died instantly. Bobby had not noticed a thing; he stuck the flowers into the top of his waistcoat and continued on his way. But the narrow path came to an end and all at once he found himself standing on the brink of a yawning abyss. In his dismay Bobby failed to notice that - chip! - a second tomahawk had cut into the handle of his travelling bag and was stuck there. He felt his heart beat violently and he had to rest for a few seconds. His attention was soon drawn to a huge long piece of rock leaning up against the cliff wall to his left. Bobby's inventiveness was aroused. He decided to build himself a comfortable bridge with this boulder. In no time he had levered it away from the cliff wall; - crrrrrrraaack! ! - the second redskin, who had been lurking under the rock, was flattened. His death cry didn't ring out until he had reached the happy hunting grounds of his fathers. Apart from that, the boulder had fallen as planned and just barely spanned the gap over the abyss. Bobby began to cross the bridge; here and there stones clattered down into the depths and the boulder began to slip, but Bobby took things easy. Behind him the last Indian was making for him, burning for revenge and for his blood. It was the "hook-tailed snake", a chief from Mount Thunder. His eagle eye showed clearly that the next minutes were to be decisive, that it was his intention to capture the insolent paleface and have him put to death. Like a jaguar he sprang after the poet, who was already half way over the bridge. Alarmed as the boulder had begun to slip, Bobby quickly decided to take a big jump and landed safely on the other side. For this reason the Indian's jump fell short, the bridge gave way and fell with him down into the depths of the gorge. The scalping knife had slipped from the chief's hand and spiralled its way into Bobby's coat tails, where it stayed nicely put. -

All three Indians were dead without Bobby having had any idea of the great danger he was in. And just as he had been unaware of this, so too he was quite unconscious of the fact that there was a poisoned arrow in his hat, a tomahawk in the strap of his bag and a scalping knife in the tail of his coat. Nor did he know that instead of the 1,000 dollars (which of course Marygold was minding for him) he was carrying a rattlesnake in his bag. We shall see what use these things are to be to him.

  BOBBY BOX    SEVENTH ADVENTURE