CHAPTER I.. Breakfast Interrupted--Chasing a Big Tusker.

BREAKFAST INTERRUPTED--CHASING A BIG TUSKER.

We were just going inside the tent, Harry, Jack, and I, to eat our frugal breakfast, when we saw one of our natives coming at a rapid run. He waved his hand as he approached, and shouted:

"Tembo, Bwana!"

Rendered into English, this means, "Elephants, master!" and the announcement of elephants put the thought of breakfast out of our heads.

The man came to a halt in front of us, and explained, in a mixture of English, Cape Dutch, and two or three native languages, that he had discovered a troop of elephants a little more than a mile from our camp. There were ten or twelve of them, he thought, and among them were at least three or four large tuskers.

"All right," said I. "Let's go to breakfast, boys, and then go after the elephants. They'll keep, and the breakfast won't, nor will we keep, either, without it."

So we went to the tent and speedily made way with what the cook had prepared. It was a modest repast, consisting of coffee, with plenty of sugar and no milk, and some steaks of hartbeest broiled over the coals of a thorn-bush fire. For bread we had what the English colonist calls damper--dough made of flour and water, and baked in a Dutch oven. Very good bread can be made in this way, but not by the ordinary Hottentot cook, such as one engages for an African hunting-expedition.

We disposed of our breakfast with a rapidity that would have done honor to a railway-station where the train halts ten minutes for refreshments. In considerably less than ten minutes we had finished breakfast and were getting our rifles ready for business.

We took our heaviest rifles, as the game was of a kind to require a liberal amount of lead to bring it down. My elephant-gun carried six bullets to the pound; it was a breech-loader of the Remington pattern, and of a weight proportioned to its caliber. A trusty negro boy carried it for me, and his instructions were to keep close at my heels wherever I went, whenever we were out on a hunting-expedition.

Jack and Harry had a similar equipment, except that their rifles carried eight bullets to the pound, and consequently had a little less penetrating power than my own. Each of us had a supply of explosive bullets, in addition to the solid ones, and in the course of this narrative the reader will learn how these explosive bullets were used.

When a party goes out on a hunting-expedition there is always a risk that somebody will shoot somebody else; elephant and buffalo hunting is nearly always conducted among trees or bushes, very rarely in open ground, and where parties are within gunshot of one another it is impossible always to avoid accidents, even with the greatest care. For this reason it was our custom to scatter about a good deal, first ascertaining the position of the game, and the direction in which it would be likely to run when disturbed.

Mirogo, my native tracker, who had discovered the troop of elephants, said they were in a little piece of forest adjoining a swamp on the banks of the Luranga River. As he described the forest we made out that it was not more than forty or fifty acres in extent, while the swamp was much larger. After some discussion it was arranged that Harry should make a circuitous course to the farther side of the forest, Jack was to remain on the hither side, while Frank (that is my name) would penetrate the wooded ground and literally stir up the animals, getting the most effective shot that he could while so doing.

It was necessary to be very careful about giving the elephants our wind; if they once got scent of us they would be off in a hurry. Fortune favored us in this respect, as the wind blew directly across the forest toward the point where we reached it. Consequently the animals were not likely to scent us, provided neither Harry nor Jack proceeded too far along their respective sides of the lair of the elephants.

I sat down and waited while Harry and Jack were reaching their positions, and during my waiting spell I listened intently for a sound of the animals. Now and then the breeze brought to my ears the crashing of the limbs and trees, and the low trumpetings of the elephants as they called to one another while taking their morning feed. It was evident they had not been alarmed and were totally unaware of the danger that threatened them.

When I had allowed a sufficient time, as I thought, for my friends to reach their stations, I proceeded cautiously into the forest, preceded by Mirogo, the tracker, and closely followed by Kalil, my gun-bearer.

We advanced in the direction of the sound of the crashing of limbs, keeping carefully up the wind; and when within two or three hundred yards, as nearly as I could judge, of the elephants, I took possession of my gun and cartridge-belt, and told Kalil to stand by with more cartridges ready to give me in case I needed them.

The ground was difficult to march over, as it was covered with creeping vines that every moment threatened to trip me up, and would most certainly do so in case I were trying to run from an enraged elephant. The elephant can crash through these creepers and undergrowth with the greatest ease; at all events, they do not seem to impede him in the least when he is pursuing the man who has fired at him and failed to bring him down. Should the man fall under such circumstances his life is not worth the value of a pin; he is trampled out of all semblance to humanity, and sometimes the infuriated beast will stand over him for an hour or more, long after life is extinct, trumpeting and bellowing, and renewing his assaults upon the shapeless remains of his adversary.

Lest the reader might suppose that this statement is a flight of fancy let me tell what happened to my friend M----, only a few months before the time of which I am writing. M---- and I were hunting on one of the tributaries of the Zambesi, and had bagged a goodly quantity of large game. I was one ahead of M---- on the score of elephants, and the time was approaching for us to break camp and return to the Boer country, whence we had started on our expedition.

One morning two elephants were reported not very far from our camp, and I suggested to M---- that he had better go out and shoot one in order to bring his account even with mine, and I added, jocularly, "If you can shoot them both I'll divide with you and keep our scores just equal. I don't want you to beat me and be able to boast about it after we get back to civilization."

"Oh, I'll take care of both of them," M---- answered, "and bring in a buffalo or two in addition."

Off he started with his tracker and gun-bearer, while I went out on the plain to the south of us, in the hope of bagging a koodoo or a gemsbok. I was gone until noon, or a little later.

When I came back to camp there was no one there but the cook, and two of the men, who were guarding the oxen. The cook told me that something terrible had happened to Mr. M----, and the rest of the men had gone out to where he had been hunting elephants.

I followed immediately, and found that poor M---- had shot at an elephant, but did not succeed in hitting him vitally. The animal fell to the ground, but was up again in a moment, so the tracker said. He wheeled about with wonderful quickness, considering his size and apparent awkwardness, and made straight for his assailant. M---- started to run and reach the shelter of the nearest tree; his foot caught in a creeping vine, and he fell prostrate. In a moment the elephant was upon him, pounding the unfortunate man with his trunk, trampling him underfoot, and impaling him with his tusks. The tracker watched him from the nearest shelter, but could do nothing. The elephant remained by the side of his victim for at least half an hour, when, hearing a trumpet-call from his companion, he moved away into the forest.

We brought M----'s body to the camp, and buried it with all the ceremony which our situation permitted. I at once gave orders for inspanning the oxen and starting on our homeward journey, and a sad journey it was, you may well believe.

But I am wandering from the thread of my story. I took the gun from the hands of Kalil, and crept cautiously along in the direction of the elephants. I must have been sixty yards away when I spied the back of one rising among the bushes; an enormous back it was, fully nine feet from the ground, but it was no use shooting at that part of the animal, and I withheld my fire. There are only a few places where you can hit an elephant and kill him at the first shot: one is directly in the center of the forehead, where the skull is a little thinner than elsewhere; another is between the eye and ear; and the third is in the vicinity of the heart, just back of the foreshoulder. If you hit him anywhere else he may travel some time carrying your lead, even though the body is penetrated from side to side; and if you hit him on the skull or any other bony place where your bullet glances off, the principal result of your shot is to enrage him. Mindful of all this, I watched and waited for a suitable chance, and in a little while I had it.

The elephant fed slowly along, and, fortunately for me, though not for him, he fed in my direction. He broke through the clump of bushes where he was feeding, and gave me a full view of his head, broadside on. I took aim between his eye and ear, and I took careful aim, you may be sure. Then I fired, and heard plainly the thud of the bullet as it reached its mark.

The smoke hung about me, and for half a minute or so I could not see in any direction. That is a nuisance in shooting in an African forest, and especially in a swampy one. The air is so damp that the smoke does not quickly clear away, and the hunter is often left in doubt at a very critical moment.

And it was a critical moment in this case: the elephant fell to the ground as the result of my shot, and I felt that my prize was secure; but as the smoke cleared away he rose to his feet again, and charged directly toward where I stood. I do not think I was over fifty yards from him when I fired, and therefore he had but a short distance to come. He ran and I ran; but in the meantime I had got a fresh cartridge from my belt and shoved it into the gun. I kept my eye on a large tree a little to the right of my position, and made for that tree with the greatest speed of which I was capable, taking care to avoid catching my feet in any of the creeping vines. A man can easily dodge an elephant around a large tree; the animal is so bulky and unwieldy that he cannot turn and twist as rapidly as a man can, and in this respect the biped has the advantage over the quadruped.

I was almost paralyzed with astonishment--of course I will not say fear--when I saw the bulk of the creature I had shot at, and his immense tusks. I knew it was a case of life and death, and he was not likely to give up his pursuit of me in a hurry. At the same time I felt that I had planted the bullet in an effective spot, and could not altogether understand why he was up again after having fallen. But there was no chance for theorizing; he was up, certainly, and after me, and that is all there was about it.

Round and round the tree we went, perhaps half a dozen times. He had his mouth open and trunk uplifted, and I watched for a chance to give him another shot. Shooting was difficult under the circumstances; a man on a dead run around a tree is unable to aim a gun with any accuracy, and, furthermore, there are not many vulnerable points about an elephant, as I have already shown. The only thing I could do was to fire into his mouth, but that was not likely to do any good.

The French have a saying that it is the unexpected which always happens; so it was with me and the elephant.

Suddenly there came the sound of the trumpet-call of another elephant. My pursuer stopped an instant to listen, turning his head to one side. As he did so I gave him another bullet, directly in the spot where I sent the first one. He quivered, staggered for a moment, and fell, dead!