26 IN BRIGHTEST AFRICA 
feeding. Two or three came out into the opening, 
then they became suspicious and wheeled into the 
forest again. I followed cautiously. I had gone only 
a short distance when I saw a very young calf about’ 
twenty yards ahead of me. As I halted, the mother 
came trotting back down the trail looking for the 
baby. I froze to the side of a tree with my gun ready. 
She came to the baby and turning, boosted it along 
with her trunk after the rest of the herd. I followed 
along after them into an opening where I found them 
rounded up in a patch of burned-over ground. They 
were milling around in a rather compact mass seem- 
ingly preparing for defence. I could not see very 
plainly, for a cloud of dust rose from the burned 
ground as they shuffled about. I stood watching 
them a little time and suddenly caught sight of a 
fine tusk—an old bull and just what I wanted for the 
group I was working on for the Museum of Natural 
History. I ran up behind a bush at the edge of the 
clearing and peeked through it. There, not more 
than twenty yards from me, was my bull, partially 
exposed and partially covered by the other animals. 
I could not get a shot at his brain as he was standing, 
but the foreleg on my side was forward exposing his 
side so that I had a good shot at his heart—a shot 
I had never made before. The heart is eighteen or 
twenty inches long and perhaps a foot up and down— 
a good mark in size if one’s guess at its location is 
accurate. Ifyou can hit an elephant’s vertebre and 
break his back you can kill him. You can kill him 
by hitting his heart, or by hitting his brain. If you 
