162 IN BRIGHTEST AFRICA 
He shot again and got her. However, there were 
three dead elephants instead of one when we stopped 
them, for Kermit and I had to shoot, too, to head off 
the others. The rule in elephant hunting is to get as 
close as you can before shooting, and in whatever 
Roosevelt was doing he came out in the open and went 
straight to the point. 
Kermit’s baby elephant, now mounted in the group, 
was taken that day, also. After we had turned them, 
I saw a calf I wanted, asked Kermit to shoot him, 
and he did so. 
While Tarlton and Kermit returned for the camp 
equipment and the supplies required in caring for 
the elephants, Colonel Roosevelt and I sat together 
resting in the shade of an acacia. We were alone in 
the heart of Africa and he talked to me of his wife 
and children at home. He had not seen any one from 
the United States, excepting the members of his own 
party, for a good many months, while I was fresh from 
the States, fresh from Oyster Bay. In those three 
hours I got a new vision and a new view of Theodore 
Roosevelt. It was then that I learned to love him. 
It was then that I realized that I could follow him 
anywhere; even if I doubted, I would follow him be- 
cause I knew his sincerity, his integrity, and the big- 
ness of the man. Since his death those qualities that 
I caught a glimpse of in Africa under the acacia tree 
—those qualities that made Theodore Roosevelt 
what he was—I have seen more fully and completely 
as they are reflected in his children and his children’s 
children. 
