142 TRAPPING WILD ANIMALS 
Then Omar grabbed a club and pounded the orang’s 
arm; the pulling stopped, and I realized that I was 
being dragged away from the nets. For several 
minutes I was too groggy to know what was hap- 
pening, but the idea that the natives might kill the 
orang-outangs while I was disabled made me sit up. 
They were standing there, looking first at me and 
then at the animals, wondering what to do. I told 
them I was all right and I began feeling my leg. 
It was not broken, but it had been so badly wrenched 
that I could not stand on it. 
While I sat on the ground directing the work, 
the men gathered the outside meshes of the nets 
and ran a rope through them. Then, as the other 
ropes were loosened, they pulled the noose close, and 
the two brutes were in a sack. For the first time, 
I had an opportunity to examine our catch; they 
were the two biggest orang-outangs ever captured 
in Borneo. 
Gradually they exhausted themselves and gave 
up the struggle. They peered out through the 
meshes, snarling at the men who came near them 
and sometimes shooting out a long arm with the 
fingers opening and closing. The natives squatted 
about in a circle, watching the animals and laugh- 
ing. 
When the men had rested, I had them build two 
litters of boughs—one for the dead man and the 
other for me. Then we strung the net on three 
long poles, to be carried by twelve men, and started 
