 This is the story of a man who never belonged anywhere whose backyard is the world, whose ways of life are the dreams of escape for those who want action but never find it. The man, John Steele, adventurer. What makes a sportsman? Is it the urge to kill, to kill big games, the biggest animal, the biggest fish, the urge to show off, to hang stuffed heads on the wall, or is it the oldest way men know how to prove their courage? What makes a sportsman? Join me on a hunt and find out. A different kind of hunt I'll never forget, not only because we almost didn't get back alive but because of the things I learned, learned all over again. What makes a sportsman is what makes the man. So many things we know, elementary truths that life drums into our skulls. Why do we keep forgetting? Why do we blunder through life like a wounded animal in a jungle thicket, blundering wild and blind with a hunter at his heels, the hunter with the gun, the almighty power of death? Why was I here? Why did I hire out to take them here, here to barma these two guys, Francis Leroy and Noah Baxter, guys who couldn't see eye to eye? I should have known better. I should have known enough to turn them down, them both down, their green backs and their green disposition. Oh, shoot as I wish. I don't hunt to kill, I shoot with a cam. Oh, shut up, Leroy. Hey, Steele. Yeah, Mr. Baxter. Steele, where's my liquor? I thought I paid you for aunt's expedition. Tamra's film. What's the idea letting him come along? Huh, sir, kill you mean. All you want to do is kill. Oh, shut up. You ought to be back home snoutin', baby. Just a second, you two. Come on, come on, Steele. Your guide. Guide, ain't your guide? Will guide me to my bourbon. You packed all this camp and gear. Why me think, huh? Let me remember. Mr. Steele. Oh, shut up, Lenla. Mr. Steele. Never mind, Mr. Kodak. Where's my mash? Really, Mr. Steele, the way you've packed all these hemicrolls, I can't find my light meter. Light meter? What's the matter with your eyes? Hey, my gun would eyes any jerk out of you able to aim a camera. I wasn't talking to you, Mr. Baxter. Good idea. My liquor, Steele, where'd you put out? Yeah, yeah, I remember where I packed it now. Just a second. Really, Mr. Baxter, if you and I get along... You and me bust her in the same league. If we're going to get along on this expedition... Again, we ain't going to get along. Hunts and trips of her man with a gun. Now, you just keep out of rifle range so you're liable to get a 470 Express to the box of your car. I brought your bottle back, sir. Bottle? I gave you a case to pack back in Mandalay. You're not home, Mr. and you're not in Mandalay. One bottle? Oh, we could comfortably carry. Now, what about your light meter, Mr. LaRoy? Oh, I can't find it. One bottle. You'll find all your camera supplies in that map, sir. Aren't you going to engage his porters? No porters. Monsoon, see ya. One bottle. Well, you mean, say that we'll each have to pack cherry, carry our own? Each his own. But you're supposed to have porters on jungle expeditions. Why, I have all this photographic equipment. Monsoon, rainy season. Can't hibernate it. They farm. Say, you know how hot it is? Want to call it quits? No. It'll get hotter. I'm after tigers. LaRoy? Well, we haven't even begun. Giving you both your chance now before we get into the hill. Oh, I've got to get those shots of the green pigeon. Come on, pick up your packs. Let's get started. Shots. Camera shots, Mr. Baxter. I don't kill. Pigeon. That's right. Pigeon. We started. Noah Baxter, LaRoy and me. I took the lead. We started up into the lush, hilly bush. Burma bush. Not the humming green madness you find to the east in Indochina or northwest in Assam. Even in Monsoon, Burma is different. Quiet. Except for the bird. The sound of birds. Quiet and tangled. Tangled with trees and thick creeper vines. Tangled so thick you don't see wild game until it's right on top of you. Tigers, leopard, wild elephant and men. Sometimes only yards apart. Ignorant of each other when the wind is right. All moving side by side. And the trees. The teak. Teak trees all around. Climbing up out of the tangles. Trees, centuries high. They're still. Get back here on the trail. They're still. You told LaRoy together. You two guys are going to keep together behind me now. Well, I saw stuff moving along the side. Go wandering off. Just looking for a shot. I'm sorry, Mr. Steele. I didn't see a chance to snap some real butterflies. Now look, both of you. You're going to preach at me again. I'm sorry, Mr. Steele. Sorry, sir. You two going to start that again. And script me to march along with this camera bundle. Oh, Hoodlum. Every time I see a chance to shoot, he starts clicking them cameras. You'll get your fellow hunting. Hunting. Killing. You mean Hoodlum with a gun? Okay. Oh, no, no. Here's your money. No, no, come on. Come on, Steele. Please, Mr. Steele. Don't resign. I must get my pictures of the green picture. I forget it. Yeah, have a drink, Steele. Come on, come on. Sure, don't get sore. Yeah, I'm sore. I'm rubbed raw with you guys. Put that bottle away. Okay, sure. I'll stick behind you on the trail. I'll even stick behind you, Leroy. We started off again. But they didn't. They didn't stick behind me, and the brush kept getting heavier. Every time I turned my back on them to study the game trail ahead, I could hear them fly apart, crashing off into separate directions behind me. Baxter! You're serious? Come on! I'm coming, Mr. Steele. Oh, I'm coming. I'm coming. You're coming back. Come on, all the way through. Do it right now. The country kept getting rougher. Overhead up through the curtain of trees, I could see the sky darkening. Thunderheads bringing up the humidity. The air kept getting thinner, tense and charged. Tense, as if it was being stretched. As if it was made of rubber until the monsoon storm broke, and I know it would snap apart into rain. I felt tense inside too, and I know it wasn't only electricity in the air. Them. It was them, these two, these two men. Lightning hit high up in the trees, and I thought about electricity. Light charges repel. Unlike charges attract. They didn't look alike. One with a gun, the other with a camera. They didn't look alike. They looked different. But they were both hunters. Light charges repel. Lightning kept hitting closer, and I made them run for the cover of the clearing away from the trees. Okay, okay. It was rain, but my camera is. I mustn't get my equipment too wet. The clearing, stay close. Get in touch with it. Don't get lost. Follow me now. Come on, rain. Make the clearing. Another manner we won't be able to see. Come on, you. What? The air liquid. It was getting darker, and I couldn't see. Sir, what happened? A shot. I ran for the sound of the gun. The rain turned out, and I broke through a tangle of creeper vines down below in the jungle creek. A cow buffalo was threatening Leroy with its horns. Baxter was getting set to shoot again. A tame cow, water buffalo with a little baby cat. Baxter must have missed his first shot. Bill, that's still Leroy. Baxter, don't shoot. That's still Leroy. The beginning of danger and a piece of the unknown. There's much of these when in a moment we hear more in the story of John Steele, adventurer. I warned him. I warned Baxter, but he took careful aim and squeezed the trigger. When I slid down the bank into the jungle river, Baxter was lying on his back half in the water, a dumb look on his face. Leroy was gone, so was the buffalo. But the little buffalo calf was dead. A vulture flapped down onto a low tree branch. I went past Baxter, I went through the water and brushed away the green jungle slime on the surface of the river. A little calf had been chopped through the heart. I lifted it by the tail to pull it out of the water. It was too heavy. I let it go. The tail sank down again into the water. I watched the green slimy waters turn red. Say, give me a... Get up yourself. I can't, I can't. Get up. Easy. Hey, where's my rifle? Shoulder. Yeah. Thought you knew how to use a heavy express. My hip. Bottle. Look, I cut my... Well, you did it. I broke my bottle and cut the hip. You sure did it up fine. Just get hold of my arm. I give it a pull. Guess you're right. Cut ain't so bad, but the rifle surely tink my shoulder. Kick back. That's not only kick back. Balloy. That jerk. Balloy, come out here. Camera's snapping. Jerk, it wasn't for him. I didn't see you. Come down out of that tree. Did you say that animal was tame, Mr. Steele? It wasn't for you, Len Slouse. You and your click, click and camera. I didn't ask you to shoot. Screaming and yelling like a little child. It wasn't for you. I had a real fine trophy. Hey, Steele, you seem to see that animal's head. A horn. I saw them 30 birds, and I wanted to keep up with you, Mr. Steele. But I thought, well, the rain... Man, I can see them horns right now. Over my fireplace. Three feet wide. I thought if I got under a tree, it would only take a second. You wouldn't mind. Three feet if there was a niche. I just wanted to get a quick picture of the birds. They were all excited by the storm. And I didn't think you'd mind. What's the matter, Steele? Well, I didn't see the animal. He was standing under the tree, too, with a little one. The calf. What's the matter, huh? Well, they chased me. It really did. And you know, I don't have a gun. They chased me down here to the river. But was it really tame, Mr. Steele? It looked so pretty. Yeah, Leroy, it looked... Where's the little calf? Come on. Let's get out of here. Say, uh, you sure you only packed me that one bottle? If it really was, Tame, why did you chase me, Mr. Steele? Come on, before the cow comes back. I really wanted to get those pictures. I'm sure it'll feel better now. I'm always afraid of that one. The green pigeon. Cut on my hips, not so bad. Flesh cut. Very rare, you know. Did you know it's very rare to steal the green pigeon? Sure, I missed that bottle. And then there's the whitey grit. Whitey grit's very rare, too. Pictures, I mean. All that pedigree, Kentucky mash. Down on the bottom of a stinking river. Like the baby. Uh-oh. Yeah, you mean that calf, huh? Oh, wait. Not so fast, Mr. Steele. Don't leave so fast. Yeah, sure it's still not so hot. I sure wish I still had that bottle. I wish I could keep up with you. Oh, no, boy, I had that bottle. Things would be different. I wouldn't feel like that. Babble. Nicola and Dime talk. Babbling like nothing had happened. Babbling in the middle of the suddenly quiet juncture. I couldn't talk. I couldn't answer them. All I could do was lead them, do what they'd paid me to do. I was afraid to talk. I was afraid to let go. I felt like I was screaming inside. I was afraid if I said another word, the screaming would break out of me and I'd have my knife against their throats and I wouldn't know how to hold myself back. The sky was darkening again. Lightning was stabbing far off over the trees, still too far away to hear the thunder. I kept listening for grunts and I kept washing the grass and the ground. I was following something they didn't know they didn't see. They had eyes to work gun sights and rangefinders, but they didn't see the watery splotches of blood dying the jungle grass. Blood from a wounded cow who'd never forget her calf. They didn't know when you wound a buffalo, you have two choices, stalk it or it stalks you. Just a tame couple. Tame, yeah, sure, with a wound. Well, I didn't know. When this calf shot down before its eyes, bullet must have gone through the mother, hit the calf between the eyes. A 470 will go through Steve. Well, I didn't know. I thought, well, I thought him screaming, I thought she was wild. I've heard all about wild buffalo. Wild now, all right. Come on, looks like it's safe for a while. Safe as it's gonna be. They knew, but the only new part, I was afraid to tell them the whole truth. Afraid like I saw them getting more and more afraid as the sky darkened again and monsoon lightning started shaving the tops off distant trees. Afraid, not like cowards. Afraid like I was afraid. Because we were only men in the savage wilderness with its own laws. Laws that go back a million of years before there were any men. One of us had touched the trigger that works that law. Kill or be killed. Mr. Steve. Down, keep your voice down. I see him, the river. Where the calf was killed? We're going around. Circling? What's the idea, Steve? Okay, I didn't want to tell you. Yeah, we've been circling. I was only trying to trail the wounded buffalo. Only now it's tailing us. What? Don't move. No more my son. Trailing us? All this time? They'll do that. What's it mean? Get her before she gets us. She'll kill us. I didn't really come here for buffalo. You're here now. I want to shoot a tiger. I want to get another chance at those birds. Stop moving, keep your voice us down. She's gone away. It's a star. A trick. To lead us after into those thorn-picks. I don't see you. If you do this close, you'll never live to remember it. That means there's big dumb head over like that. Hey, what? It's cutting enough to lead us into a tent. Most cunning thing in the bush. Back to an elephant. I read that. Only elephant can't see like buffalo. I read that too in hunting magazines. Elephants will run from a man. Wounded buffalo never. They'll never give up. Maybe you read that. No, I never read that. I guess I started something. Come on, wind shifting. Yeah, mister. With the sky the way it is, I guess you sure did. The sky. The sky was getting lower, lower and lower. Until ugly, green black clouds came down like rotten shrouds and capped the crops of the trees. But out of the clouds, the lightning, stabbing down and charging the heavy wet air, charging the earth, charging us, so you could feel the hair rise on your arms in the back of your neck and it was hard to breathe. The air was electric and I thought of electricity again. Baxter and Leroy, they were together now. Maybe they really were alike deep down. The gun and the camera and the men, different skills, but maybe it all winds up that way anyway. Kill or be killed. Dark. It's getting darker. I don't like it. So still, so still, Mr. Steel. Yeah, yeah, still. Just be quiet. Never this still. Nothing's moving. Not even the leaves. Strange. I feel, I feel like everything's waiting. Yeah, yeah, sure, waiting. I'm waiting for a chance to get in some real hunting. You are, huh? Yeah. What do you think I spent all that money for? Even a pitchers snapper here. Did you wait for a chance at them green pigeons? Oh, yes, I've come a long way, Mr. Baxter. Green pigeons. Of course, I will settle for the whitey grit. Sure. Yeah, getting darker all the time. You hardly see the trees. You know, this is very upsetting, coming out here hunting, finding out it's you being hunted. Suspense and action. One leads to the other. The result we'll hear in just a moment with the climax of another adventure with John Steele. We couldn't see. The dark thunderheads came down so low they seemed to press down 100 foot tops of the teak trees. And it felt like the ground was reaching up to touch too. Low pressure. The air pressure was dropping and low pressure was sucking up every stink and smell from the jungle all around me. And our smell too. Sucking it up and sending it out into the humid air. Sending it out to the keen nostrils of the waiting buffalo. The heaviness began rising up out of the ground. The leaves began to curl up too. Rain. Any minute. Rain. Rain would make it even harder to see. Back home, I tell you all, I'm gonna go home. Back home, I ain't used to this. Is Steele? I ain't used to waiting. This is Steele, come we go. Wait and get your old age. I am since we go. Now look, old age here. Wait and didn't make me what I am. I didn't, huh? I insist we leave. Oh, it didn't, Buster. And I'm not sitting around here taking orders from you. You take orders as long as I'm in charge. I'll get down. Mr. Sears. Charge. Back home in my business, you've been charged in a washroom. Down. And, oh, I said down. I said please, Mr. Sears. I don't like it here. The atmosphere. Yeah, the washroom. I'm bopping your hand. Charge at me. Some case. Some other time, pal. Some other place. I'm gonna make you eat that. Please, now, please, don't hide. Now. Fighting will get us nowhere. What do you think I am? A two-bit jerk? You think I take orders? Take orders from the light to you? I give the orders. I got 200 people working for me, Buster. I got a building. My own building, see? I got a railroad siding. Freight comes rolling right into my building. That's what the railroad company thinks of me. Please, Mr. Baxter, you're getting very loud. Sure, I'm loud. I'll tell the world. What do you think I'm like you? Your little lens last going around tip, tip, tip on your toes for snapshots of a bird? Don't you call me that name again. I'll have you know that I'm in charge of pictorial loss of my college. I have individuals under me too, Mr. Baxter. I establish the curriculum. You're not even in charge of your style. Animal loss. Oh, I know his type. I can stand up to him. Me, me out here, I've been a bush, cops and robbers with an animal. He's telling me. Get back here. Him telling me John Steele guide. Back I said, get down. Guide. Really, Mr. Steele. I feel very uncomfortable here. I'm very uncomfortable. I'm beginning to doubt if I really want those pictures, the green pages, all the whitey grits. Pictures. Yes, I doubt if I really do. How long we got to hide? Keep yelling, you'll invite a charge. I've listened to all I'm going out of both of you. I want to go. Sit down. I don't like it. I want to go. I'd rather go kill Mr. Steele. You're going to stay down, both of us. I can't stand it. You start it. I'll go get it. You will. I got a gun. I know how to use it. Like I used it before. Mr. Steele's right. Let's stay out of this. It's my life too. I don't have a gun. Okay, you got one. No. You've talked so much here, my wife. I don't use a gun. No, no, you don't. You wouldn't know how, would you? Like you, I suppose, like you. You're a hoodlum of killer. Steele's right. You got us into this. You're the big hero. All right, you. You talk about hunting, sports. Shut up. Go ahead. You like to shoot the kill? Get us out. I don't want to die here. Get down, both of you. I'm sick for the years of listening to you. Get down. I warned you that bottle lost quite a lot. Let me go. I don't like it. He's waiting around. I don't feel like waiting. Go ahead. Go ahead, Bector. There's the woods. Go ahead. Use your gun. We're all sick of waiting for something we can't see. Just me, huh? All right, me too. I'm not afraid. You get the gun. I'll depend on you. Steele, you? There's a difference between being afraid and committing suicide. You realize we're going into this blind. She's waiting and we don't know where. There's poor trail circles. There may be a minute. There may be a week. She's only hurt bad enough to turn wild. Yeah, yeah, we know all that. I'm a hunter. I'm no sitting backer. I say go get her. She's so sad I'll get none. All right, let's go. We went. Ten hours we went by the radio hands of my watch. We went through the dark. Baxter, Meroy and May, like crazy men, through the tangled creepers and the foreign tickets. And every minute, every foot we went, we waited for the close range charge. They gave you just one chance to shoot or the certainty of death. Quiet. Terrible. So still. Why is it so quiet? Why is it so noisy? Keep your voice down. Like a tomb. The jungle knows. Everything in the jungle is waiting, too. I hear it. Close it. Over there. No. Quiet. No, there. I say that sicker. Close the ones there. Shut up. You can't match eyesight with her eyes, ears or nose. Now keep shut. How about them fancy range finders on your cameras, Meroy? You got some sights. All right, it's quiet again. This is it. She's going to charge. She's standing still somewhere close. They can stand like statues. In cover, they'll stand like that. Stand and wait. She's waiting. She's got us nailed down by our smell. If we don't know where she is in this thick bush, want us to stumble on to her. Smoke her up. Yes, Mr. Seals. Like with Coco back home rocks. Up for rocks. Where are you getting rocks? I said dirt branches. Up for all around. She won't move. I can't stand here tonight. We got to smoke her up. Boom. Huh? Look. Up to the white. That's it. Like a ghost. Put down that camera. The white dress. See there? I'm a stone bull. Put it down. Whitey Gretts' shovel with buffalo. Grab them back. No. I won't use flash. I'll just... Gun. Gun back there. It's her. The camera. Camera click. Gun. Shoot. This is it. Camera click. Smoke around. Got Maroy. Got him with her horn. Back. Get back for a clear shot. Hey, here it is. You hit the boss. The bony part between the horn. Shoot for the tower. The horn. She got away. Maroy. Shot twice. They shot her twice and she got away. Maroy. Come on. Look at the flat. She's losing blood with the packet. Come on. That'll finish her. I'm not going to go from this again. Back, sir. Wait. The Roy's hurt. Come back here. The buffalo is not finished. Come back. A man bleeding and another one running crazy blind through the dark, running after a 2,000-pound wounded animal with horns that start thick as your arm and end up in a pair of needle points. I stayed with the Roy. I had to. Yeah. Hurts, I know. Maroy. If I still, I get a chance to turn it. My left shoulder, isn't it? No. You're right. Funny. Feels like I'm on my left. I swing my camera on my left, you know? Yeah, yeah. I know. It's got your cameras, too. Smash my cameras? No, no. Stay down. Both my cameras? Expensive. Yeah, I know. Here. Roll over them. No, not the money. My pictures. Smash one camera. Other one I think just fell. Which camera? No. Roll. Which one did it smash? The one you were using. My picture? Uh-huh. The white cigarette? Should have warned you. The grits fly with Buffalo. My picture. Climb on their backs. Pick out bugs and things. One of a kind. Now it's gone. Maybe you'll get another chance sometime. You still got a camera. Oh, no. Not like that. Hey! Baxter, you all right? Hey, Lampo. Come on. Hey, it hurts. You saw the Buffalo get him? What's he wants to you? Come on. I got the Buffalo. She's dead. She's so trusty. Huh? Says he got the Buffalo. She ran to, she died. Guess lost her blood. Come on, little eagle. Shoot me so you don't have a cover. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, sure, Baxter. Sometime. Maybe sometime he'll take your picture. This is John Steele. Saying adventure is like pepper. Hot or mild, it adds flavor, zest, and tang to any life. Use it sparingly. But use it often.