A JOURNEY UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 583 



Firing rapidly and with unerring accuracy, Colonel Roosevelt 

 killed the monster animals and the others took fright and fled. 



It was some time before Colonel Roosevelt could calm down 

 his frightened rowers sufficiently to make them row his boat along- 

 side the dead animals which were floating in the water. Colonel 

 Roosevelt had been gone so long that his party in camp had grown 

 alarmed and had put out in a launch to search for him. There was 

 much anxiety in camp as the hours sped by and neither Colonel 

 Roosevelt nor the searching launch was found or heard from. 



TOO VALUABLE TO LEAVE BEHIND. 



At three o'clock the next morning, however, the launch arrived 

 back in camp. There had been no sleep among the members of the 

 party and they were all on the beach at the first sound of the 

 launch's siren. Colonel Roosevelt had declared when the launch 

 came up to him in the far end of the lake that the hippos he had 

 killed in his deadly struggle were too fine to lose. He insisted 

 that they should be towed back to camp, and it took the launch 

 several hours to tow them in where they were eagerly seized upon 

 by the Smithsonian members who declared they were the finest 

 secured during the entire hunt. 



Colonel Roosevelt's narrow escape from death, and the time 

 taken up in towing the hippos back to camp, had delayed his trip 

 to Nairobi and he did not start for that point until the following 

 morning. 



While Colonel Roosevelt was not inclined to magnify his 

 dangers in his encounters with the hippos, the native boatmen declar- 

 ed they had been in many close situations but that was the closest. 

 The hippos, they said, were in a savage mood and there would have 

 been no escape had the boat been overturned. 



The natives were transfixed with surprise at a sight so un- 

 usual. From the glances which they threw at the wonderful hunter 

 whose prowess had accomplished such a marvellous achievement, 

 one could readily perceive that in their ignorance they credited 

 him with supernatural powers and their awe-inspired devotion was 

 heartily given him. The two porters who had accompanied him 



