But a TROOP of Baboons… talk about a harbinger of doom… I love the one mugging for the camera, Ferris Bueller style… even got the blue eyes right… Then there’s the one shooting us a sideways glance…
I think Mr. Allen is having fun, drawing all the animals that he never got to draw under the heavy yoke of Messers. Elrod and Dodd… Easy there, big guy, managing and producing a daily strip is a marathon, not a sprint…
Now we are getting somewhere! There had to be a really BAD ACTOR… one with a full beard, to play the part of the heartless poacher. That “Dirty” is without same, we can assume that he is not beyond redemption. But boy is he ever up to his neck in bad here…
Judging by his dark hair and swarthy complexion, I am guessing that “Carlson’s” first name isn’t Sven… but maybe Carlson is his FIRST name… who knows. But it certainly seems like Dirty has history with this gang. That this isn’t his first rodeo…
And let’s review the transaction here. Carlson has Rhino horns worth big money, Dirty has (with apologies to Amazing Amy)
As usual, this will play out slowly and clumsily until such time that Mark can confront the bad guys and triumph over their evil. Will Dirty go down or will he be saved? That’s the question…
And so the plot thickens. If not slightly contrived… OK, Really Contrived. How does a Lady Dentist get wrapped up with a Rhino Horn Poacher replete with gambling debts? I doesn’t add up at all. So off he goes, not to “report this crime to the local authorities” but to the “outskirts” where all bad people who shun the light hang out… Are these the people of the Northern Outskirts or the Southern? How does one know? I guess it must be written somewhere in the Bad Guy Guide Book… Maybe it has to do with what hemisphere one finds oneself…
So while the animals in the water hole practice voluntary segregation, (really, why do we spend so much time forcing and preaching “diversity?” it doesn’t seem natural… but then we are above the animals, right? I wonder…) Dirty drives off to take care of his “business” while Mark and Lori, none the wiser (OK, maybe just Lori) head back to camp…
You won’t be so proud of him when you realize that he is a self-dealing, underhanded, lying, weaseling sack of dung… But hey, who are we to judge??
I hope we get to follow Dirty into town. I want to see what he’s up to!!
Dirty, you are so full of it the whites of your eyes are turning brown! Your goal this whole time has been to meet your contact and do your “Dirty” deal… So suddenly you are quite all right with leaving your “woman” in the care and custody of one Mark Trail… And in case we want to play the game, “Where in the World is Mark Trail?” Shyanda is in Rwanda, Africa…
Local Authorities… that’s a good one! Shyanda appears to almost uninhabited, certainly not a place where “authorities” would hang out… But it IS the kind of place where nefarious deeds can be concocted and brought to fruition…
Saddest Trail Ever. Seriously. This is not the first time we have stuck our toe in the poaching pool, but we have never seen the like of this…
No more words today.
The Daily Trail 
