Every now and then the artwork and the backgrounds turn into a bit of a “What doesn’t fit in this picture” Game…

Panel 1:  Taurus running in the fields of green holding onto his red whistle (there’s that again…) the plane, boss, the plane!

Panel 2:   Chris Dyer preaching/ declaring/ gesturing awkwardly that “this Safari is officially over.”  With purple mountains’ majesty as a backdrop, almost as is he has returned from seeing a burning bush and is in possession of the stone tablets…

Panel 3:  No background, just a tearful Lori telling a distracted and unfeeling Chris that she was recently attacked by a snake!  You know what?  I don’t think he really cares…

So, as we move this story along, will we ever turn up the bones of the guy that Mark flew down there to see in the first place?  Will Mark be implicated in a smuggling ring now that he is unwittingly helping to ferry contraband?  Will Lori ever get to play something other than the fair damsel, often in distress?  What this strip needs is more strong women!  Like Cherry! BLAM!  Remember??

I have been studying the first panel for a while now (I know, it’s time to get a life…) and I can’t get my bearings…  Is Mark standing on a king size cot that Lori warrants as she is the Queen of the Safari?  Is e standing on the floor with the bed all askew and blankets and linens everywhere?  And what about that basket on the left?  Is that a clothes hamper?  Is that where the snake was all coiled up, lying in wait??

No Mark, she’s NOT “All Right…”  I think we can assume that much.  She’s as “All Right” as anyone who has had a near-death experience…  And notice how she’s not calling out for Chris…  This just keeps getting deeper and deeper.  She might as well have let the snake take her as compared to the death by a thousand cuts falling in love with Mark Trail represents…

…don’t exhale when a 20 foot constrictor has you in its coils…

…but then that’s a difficult rule to remember.  Rule number 2:  Always, in the heat of the moment, explain exactly what is going down before asking for the appropriate weapon.  Good thing Taurus keeps a fixed blade Bowie Knife on his hip for just such emergencies… Rule number 3:  apply knife blade with sufficient force to head of snake causing it to release its victim…

But on a slightly lighter side, let’s recall Kaa from Disney’s Jungle Book (always a source of accurate depiction of nature and its predator/ prey relationships…)  Voiced by Sterling Holloway (Also with Winnie the Pooh to his credit…) It’s a classic…

Well, at least it wasn’t the guy skulking by the fire, it’s a PYTHON! Pythons generally live in Trees, not tents and cots, but that’s OK, anything to keep the suspense up…  in case this ever happens to you, dear reader, follow the rules as written in this handy e-HOW article…  Apparently constrictors don’t like their tails bitten…  I wonder if Mark has read the same article??

Meanwhile Dirty is loaded down with contraband, while his true love is having the life squeezed out of her…  Grasping for meaning here, folks, but I got nothin’…

On more serious note, this article highlights the plight of the White Rhino and efforts to protect them.

We just can’t let a moment pass without another cry for help… two cries, actually, growing in intensity…  While Mark and Taurus (apparently his real name) get to know each other on a last name basis (Mark is already writing this story in his head- it will surely grab him the Pulitzer or whatever Outdoor writers covet) Lori cries out!  Could it be the shadowy figure running by the fire?  Or is that random porter number 2, who gets to do heavy lifting but doesn’t get to sit at the table with the clients?

So while Mark dredges up what will surely become Ancient Lore, part of the Oral Tradition among Taurus’ People, the story of the Great White Writer who thrust a flaming stick into the mouth of a marauding hippo, heads snap around and wine glasses fly out of hands… LORI!!

Let’s all raise a glass of lovely Pinot Noir in honor of Mark, who has once again proven that his intuition and his mettle go unmatched…

But Oh, Lori…  Such a DQ (drama queen.)  I shall be repairing to MY TENT, you know, the one that I share with no one…  not even the one who would have me, the one who, as I speak my toast, is up to is eyeballs in Rhino Horn…

…men who load trucks, and kill Rhino… While seeming to know an awful lot about Chris and his “issues” with money and gambling…  And Chris has a thing or two to learn about tipping too much of his hand.  If your adversary knows what is driving your behavior, then he owns you…  “Hi, I am Chris Dyer, and just so we are all on the same page, let me tell you all about my problems with gambling and money, and how I need a big score to get out of Dutch with Frankie ‘No Knees’ Castalano…”

Funny how they all seem to go to the same outfitter, though…  for tents and clothes and pith helmets…

Oh my goodness!  “Dirty” is ready to soil himself… just look at the face in panel 2…  And it seems that “Carlson” is unaware that Chris prefers to be called “Dirty…”  Or is Dirty a name that he has only just thought up?  That only Mark knows about?  Carlson is reminding me of the “Cobb” character Brian Dennehy played in the movie Silverado…  Big, Brash, mean, crooked, no conscience…

And yea, back off, Carlson, you need a bath!  Even the Warthog needs to get up-wind of you…

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)

• (a) “Connections” that will turn them into money,
• (b)  A giant wad of cash stuffed in his shorts to make the “buy,”
• (c)  Something on Carlson that immediately gives him the upper hand, or
• (d)  Delusions of grandeur that will quickly make this encounter turn sour…

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.

And who is in charge of this Safari, anyway?  Apparently it’s Mark, determined to find out “what caused the buffalo to run through” their camp…  Maybe it’s a “Who” and not a What…”

And there’s Dirty, “betting” again…  sheesh…

As Taurus recovers from him Traumatic Brain Injury, he shoulders a weapon while Mark and Chris “Dirty” Dyer play the “I know more about Cape Buffalo that you do” game… I learned the other day that it is entirely possible for two people together to know less than one person who doesn’t know what he is talking about…  While Mark continues to play the “not enraged” card, I have to wonder what Dirty’s life has included that would make him so wise in the ways of African Fauna.  But then he DOES “know people” there- people who are going to help him get out of debt by breaking international laws and norms by trafficking in White Rhino horn destined for the Asian market…

So sad to watch Mark have to puff his chest out, clearly showing his natural instinct to appear bigger than he is when threatened by another male human being- one who is threatening his domain as one who holds dominion over the Natural world…

It’s not like he was away, Mark…  Really.  Who does the writing here?? And with another lame attempt at dialogue involving multiple gambling euphemisms, two in one sentence, I really wish he had been beaten into the dust… but not a scratch on him.  Left for dead, Chris looks like he hasn’t even been fazed…

And Mark is still on this “something scared the Buffalo” kick.  Got news for you, Nature Boy, these animals live scared.  It’s what keeps them alive…   but OK, we will go with this idea that some external force, some agent of doom set the herd a-runnin’.   Otherwise, where on earth can this story go?  And is that it as far as Dirty’s plan to off Mark?  I suppose it’s just another in a long line of big ideas that never seem to come to fruition…

And has feelings.  For Buffalo, anyway…  not for Taurus or Dirty or anyone else that may be lying out there in a heap or trapped on top of a dented Range Rover…  And with Lori Tompkins safe in the crook of Mark’s chin, he begins to postulate what caused to herd to scramble…  and makes the distinction between a herd that is pissed off and on herd that is frightened.  Which I think is BS…  As large as these animals are, they know one thing and behave as such- they are prey.  Prey for the apex predators that roam the Savana, and their main response is to run, and only in protecting their young will they confront the predator.  So “Enraged?”  I don’t this that’s an option, Mark…

So enough with the charging Buffalo.  Let’s get back to why Mark is there in the first place… The missing (dead?) naturalist that he went there to visit in the first place.  Their paths have to cross in some form…

…the rest of you are on your own.  Sorry, but that’s just how it works in the Trail-verse…the rest of you are on your own.  Sorry, but that’s just how it works in the Trail-verse…  Meanwhile, Taurus is demonstrating the skills that placed him on the Kenyan Olympic track and field team…  Decathlon if I recall correctly.  But oh my!  What action!

I guess we will have to wait until Monday to learn of Dirty’s fate…  did death come knocking?  Seems a little grim…  I’d go with a good bruising and rank humiliation.  That would keep the fires of indignation burning brightly in the Gambler’s heart… and the story line interesting…

Like they couldn’t hear the stampede with their own less-that-Trailian senses?  And besides, it looks like they are in the middle of a dance- sort of the John Travolta/ Uma Thurman kind from  Pulp Fiction…  And we’ve probably never seen Mark running from a full-behind perspective…  oh, the vistas we have uncovered since Allen took the pen…

Take cover?  Well I guess there IS that giant tree trunk they could hide behind…