134 TRAPPING WILD ANIMALS 
Without tearing the creepers to the ground, we cut 
back as far as sixty feet on all sides. I estimated 
that the trees beyond would be well out of swinging 
distance for the orangs. At the point where I 
planned to have the big tree drop, I had an addi- 
tional thirty feet cut. Then, when the creepers were 
all simply hanging, we began work on the trees. 
First-rate native jungle men use their parangs 
with astounding rapidity and accuracy. I doubt if 
there are any finer woodsmen in the world. Their, 
greatest fault is that they like to stop working in 
order to talk. Omar, Munshee and I, knowing this 
weakness for conversation, circled through the jun- 
gle constantly, urging our men on. Partly as a 
result of this watchfulness, perhaps, I have never 
seen natives do a piece of work more neatly and 
rapidly. It was vitally important, of course, that 
we finish before the big fellows came swinging back 
home. 
The trees were cut so that they remained stand- 
ing. We were trying to achieve something like a 
flimsy structure built of cards or dominoes, which 
one push will send toppling. Ata signal, every tree 
in the circle I had mapped out was to fall, those 
at the center, first, and the others in order, until the 
one in which the orang-outangs had their platform 
was isolated. It was a nice problem in jungle-craft 
to cut the trees so that they would bear the weight 
of animals swinging in the branches, and yet be so 
weak that they would all fall—and in the proper 
