TREED BY AN ELEPHANT 237 



stopped; he said he could hear the elephants 

 feeding. A few seconds later the sound of 

 breaking branches and then the crash of a fall- 

 ing tree dispelled all doubt. 



"We were discussing a course of procedure 

 when Kongoni caught me by the arm and, point- 

 ing toward the thicket, exclaimed: 



"'Bwana, there's an elephant standing un- 

 der that thorn-tree!' 



"Straining my eyes to the limit, it was im- 

 possible to discover the brute, but suddenly an- 

 other elephant appeared, and then another and 

 another, until in all some ten or fifteen animals 

 were in sight. 



"' Hurry, Bwana,' said the gun bearer, 'they 

 are coming this way and we will be caught in 

 the open.' 



"Scattered here and there were small clusters 

 of bushes that had escaped the fire. Fifty 

 yards to our left stood a solitary tree. A hurri- 

 cane had taken out the top, leaving several large 

 limbs protruding from the upper part. Sixty 

 feet from this tree was an ant-hill six feet high; 

 a small patch of bushes grew just beyond, while 

 still farther on the Nile flowed placidly beneath 

 a perpendicular twenty-foot bank. 



