238 AFRICAN ADVENTURE STORIES 



"Moving slowly so as not to attract atten- 

 tion, we reached the tree and I placed my rifle 

 on the ground, intending that Kongoni should 

 hand it to me as soon as he had assisted me into 

 the limbs. He gave me the expected boost, 

 but when I turned and reached down for the 

 gun he was gone. 



"' Kongoni! Kongoni!' I called in a low 

 tone. There was no response. Then Kongoni 

 was seen waving to me from a clump of bushes 

 a few rods off. The idiot! what had possessed 

 him to suddenly desert me in this manner? 

 There was no danger so long as we were hidden, 

 even if the herd was large and only two hundred 

 yards away, for an elephant's eyesight is so 

 poor that he cannot see a man much more than 

 fifty yards off. 



"I should have descended the tree at once, 

 thrown the rifle strap over my shoulder, and 

 climbed back again, but I wasted so much time 

 trying to persuade Kongoni to return and hand 

 it to me, that when I did think of it the ele- 

 phants were dangerously close and I did not 

 dare make the attempt. 



"It was a grand and wonderful sight; that 

 army of two hundred modern mammoths left- 



