CHAPTER XII.. Another Elephant--a Misfortune--Harry's Luck.

ANOTHER ELEPHANT--A MISFORTUNE--HARRY'S LUCK.

"Yes, that she is," said Harry; "girl of excellent manners, and the pink of propriety."

Of course I echoed their opinion, and added to it a similar expression in favor of Mrs. Roberts, to which both my friends assented.

"We've put them on their mettle," said Jack, "and when we go to take their lunch they'll be sure to startle us in some way."

"Yes, that they will," said Harry. "I suspected as much when they named the date for our visit. They wouldn't have put the time off so far if it had not been for their desire to make elaborate preparations."

"We'll see what we shall see," I remarked; and then the conversation changed to our plans for the next day.

"I think the elephants will suffer to-morrow," said Harry--"that is, if we can find any."

"Yes," I answered, "we ought to be in the mood for an elephant-hunt, and if we can hear of any elephants about we'll go for them."

While we were at breakfast the next morning Mirogo came and announced some elephants off to the eastward, where the forest skirted a swamp extending to the river. He said they had been seen at the edge of the forest about daylight; there were a dozen or more of them, and some were large tuskers.

Breakfast was completed very quickly, and we were off in the direction of the elephants. We followed the same tactics as in some of the hunts already described, Harry and Jack taking opposite sides of the forest and I going among the trees to stir up the game.

Luck was on my side most emphatically, as I got a shot at a big tusker before I had been fifteen minutes away from my friends. I did not bring him down with my first bullet; he turned and charged me, and I had a lively race among the trees to escape him. His charge proved his ruin, as I dodged between two trees that were too near each other to enable him to get through; he was going at such a rapid rate that he fairly wedged himself between them. Seeing his predicament, I slipped around to one side and gave him a bullet at not more than five paces distance. That bullet was his death. He settled back on his haunches and fell prostrate on the ground. I fired another bullet into his head to make sure of him, but am satisfied that it was a waste of ammunition.

I stood motionless for several minutes, surveying my prize; and he was a prize, and no mistake! His tusks measured four feet nine and a half inches in length, each of them; and I have them now above my desk as I write. They have been greatly admired, and a high price has been offered for them, but I hope I may never be so hard up as to be compelled to sell these trophies of my hunting-experience.

I marked the spot, or rather took note of the position of certain tall trees near where the carcass of the elephant lay, and then started off in pursuit of the others. My tracker and gun-bearer had disappeared; exactly how far they ran I could not tell, but my first work was to summon them, which I did by blowing a whistle.

I whistled and waited; whistled and waited again and again before I was answered. First came the tracker and then the gun-bearer. I abused them roundly for having run away, though I really felt that their departure was not altogether unjustifiable under the circumstances. The elephant would have made no difference between white man and black, and he was not expected to draw a line between the man who carried the gun and the one who fired it. When I had talked myself out on that subject I asked Mirogo what had become of the other elephants.

"I think they've gone into the swamp, sir," was his reply; "I haven't heard a shot from the other gentlemen."

"Well, then, the thing for us to do is to go into the swamp and find them," I remarked. "Which way does it bear?"

Mirogo indicated the direction of the swamp and then led the way to it.

The forest was bad enough to walk in, but the swamp was worse; there were about the same vines and creepers in the swamp as in the forest, and then there was the further disadvantage that it was all cut up into little hillocks or islands, with mud-holes separating the islands from one another. The islands were of various sizes, from that of the top of a barrel up to the size of a respectable parlor; and the mud-holes between the islands were anywhere from two feet to a dozen wide. In going through these mud-holes we sank half-way to our knees--that is, if we went quickly; if we proceeded slowly we sank at least to our knees, if not deeper. Then, to add to the inconvenience, there were no trees in the swamp; at least, none large enough to afford shelter against an enraged elephant. There were some small trees, perhaps a foot in diameter, which a man could climb; but he needed the agility of a monkey to get away from his pursuer in case he got an elephant after him. I did not like that swamp a bit when we got into it, and if I had been alone I can say confidentially to the reader that I would have sneaked out and gone home. But my friends were waiting for me at the edge of the forest, and this was not a time to hesitate; I had a reputation to sustain.

Mirogo led the way into the swamp, and I followed; and before we had gone half a mile I had made two or three tumbles in the mud and water, and was covered from head to foot with black ooze. We went along as quietly as possible; but with all our care we could not help treading on an occasional stick or making some other disturbance. We could hear the elephants tramping around in the water, and they were evidently a good deal disturbed at the loss of their companion, who had fallen before my rifle. At one time they seemed to be receding from us, and I was about suggesting that we give up the chase and rejoin Jack and Harry on the open ground outside the forest.

Suddenly Mirogo, who was about ten feet in advance of me, turned around, and with finger on his lip made a motion toward the front. I crept along to his side, and when I reached it he whispered that the elephants were there--he had just seen one.

I took my gun from Kalil, and then glanced at the position to see what line of retreat I could take in case of trouble. The prospects were not favorable, and I know I felt a sinking sensation clear down into my boots, which were filled with water; but the sportsman's fire was within me, and I crept on.

Passing around a clump of bushes through a medium-sized mud-hole, and then around another clump, I came in sight of a fine bull-elephant; not as large as my first one of the morning, but still a very fine one for a hunter's bag. Unfortunately he was standing directly tail on toward me. A shot at the stern of a ship may sometimes do great damage, but not so a shot at the stern of an elephant: there is a great mass of fleshy matter there, and you can fire into it with anything short of a cannon-ball without doing much damage, and, what is more, without impeding the movements of the beast. You will simply enrage him, and that is about all.

To keep out of his sight I had to get down into a mud-hole, or rather I lay with most of my body in the mud and water, and my head and shoulders supported by one of the little islands or tussocks.

For three or four minutes the swishing and cracking of the bushes continued, and I could see the back of the elephant most of the time, but not very distinctly. Then his back disappeared and he seemed to move away, which compelled me to change my position, giving up one mud-hole for another. As I rose to an erect position I stepped on a stick, which gave way with an audible crack. Luckily the elephant at this time was engaged in smashing about among the bushes, and so did not hear me.

I crept cautiously along, and as I did so the elephant moved out from behind a large bush and presented a fine broadside. I took in the shape of his tusks and noted that they were perfect. Then I brought the rifle to my shoulder and fired.

It was a successful shot--at least, successful in one way, though disastrous in another. The elephant came down head foremost; in fact, his head was so very much foremost that it was doubled under him. He was standing just above a little island or tussock, on which lay a fallen log. Both his tusks rested on this log, and his great weight, being concentrated upon his head, broke one of the tusks short off at the lip. I heard the crack and knew that something was wrong.

The other tusk came near breaking, and I have always wondered why it did not give way; instead of doing so it tore open that side of the skull, fairly bursting the thick bone, just as the young shoot of a plant bursts the soil in which it grows. If the two tusks could have burst out in this manner it would have been a saving of time and trouble, as I then could have carried them away with me at once or sent my men to get them.

There are three ways of getting the tusks of an elephant that you have killed. If you must have them at once your only recourse is to chop them out; and chopping the tusks out of an elephant's head is no small matter. If you are encamped in the neighborhood and can wait a week or ten days, you can, at the end of that time, pull the tusks out without much difficulty. As the flesh of the animal decomposes, the tusks become loosened, just as the teeth of a horse or other animal become loose in a week or two after his death. The third way is to have the elephant fall upon the tusks in such a manner as to pry them out of their sockets. The reader will readily perceive that this is entirely a matter of accident, and of rare accident at that. Besides, there is a risk of breaking the tusks, as happened in my case.

Well, my prize lay there. After prodding him two or three times, and having Mirogo pull his tail, to make sure that he was dead, I climbed up on his side and surveyed him. He was a magnificent bull-elephant, and probably not less than one hundred years old.

There is a good deal of dispute among African hunters as to the age of elephants, some contending that they do not live anywhere near as many years as does the Asiatic elephant. There are elephants in India known to be one hundred and fifty years old. I have never been able to see why the African pachyderm should be any less long-lived than his Asiatic brother; the characteristics of the two are so nearly alike that their habits and way of life are pretty much the same, except that the Indian elephant is domesticated and the African one is not, or, at any rate, very rarely. The khedive of Egypt generally has two or three African elephants in his collection at Cairo, and the famous Jumbo--the delight of many thousands of children in Great Britain and the United States--was a native of Africa, and not of Asia. But let us return to our hunting. As soon as I had surveyed my prize and marked his position by the surrounding trees, I sent Mirogo to look for the other elephants, I following him closely. The others had taken alarm and fled. Their spoor showed that they had scattered somewhat, and just as I was considering which spoor was the largest, so that I might follow it, I heard three shots off on the right and then two on the left.

"Not much more chance for me to-day," I said to myself; "Harry and Jack are getting their innings now, and it's time they had them."

I was about saying we might as well give up the chase when Mirogo suggested it. "The elephants have taken the alarm," said Mirogo, "and we can't get near them any more; they're gone out into the forest, and are giving the other gentlemen a chance."

"Very well," I answered, "we'll go where the other gentlemen are, and see how much they have done."

Then I told Mirogo to lead the way to the one that was nearest. He suggested that we go first to Harry, and from Harry's position to Jack's, which would be in the direction of camp.

We retraced our steps out of the swamp into the dry ground of the forest, and then, by means of the sun and my pocket-compass, took a course as nearly as we could make out for the point where Harry was located. Before we got in sight of him we heard considerable clamor, which satisfied us that he had been successful. Such proved to be the case, as he had brought down a good-sized tusker with only three shots. His tracker and gun-bearer were detailing the incidents of the shooting to several of the natives, who had come out from camp and halted at a respectful distance until the affair was over. Several jackals had already appeared on the scene, and a dozen or more vultures were circling through the air, two or three hundred feet above the ground.

It is astonishing how quickly the jackals, vultures, hyenas, wild dogs, and other feeders upon fresh or stale flesh will put in an appearance after an elephant or other large animal has been killed. I have been puzzled many a time to know where they came from; they seem to rise out of the ground, or drop out of the sky, as if by magic. They are useful in their way--very useful--as they perform the work of scavengers without exacting any financial reward. Even the lion does not disdain to perform his share, and when you see him associating with hyenas and jackals you have very little inclination to rank him as the king of beasts and give him all the prerogatives of royalty.

Harry was in great glee over the elephant he had shot, especially as he had had a narrow escape in the performance. He had taken his position behind a tree, close by an elephant-path leading from the open ground into the forest. He heard the elephant crashing along among the trees, and stood ready to give him a shot. Then there was a pause and the most perfect stillness, and the pause was broken by the sound of the elephant moving again, and evidently retreating farther into the wood. Harry was about to leave his position and follow on the animal's spoor, but was restrained by his tracker, who said, "Elephant come back bimeby, little while."