DICK HkottMll's LAST EXPLOIT IN INDIA. 



433 



THE LAUGHING 

 KINGFISHER. 



Long before their arrival, the 

 intelligent brute had reached a re- 

 alizing sense of his helplessness. 

 He knew he was at the mercy of 

 those who had captured him, and 

 the moment they came in sight he trumpeted his 

 unconditional surrender. Evidently his family 

 had reached the conclusion that a lord who was 

 held immovably fast was of no further account to 

 them, and they basely abandoned him to his fate. 

 Becoming fully satisfied of his conquest, the 

 bull was released. No vicious stallion, under the 

 manipulation of Rarey himself, was meeker 

 than this monarch elephant, who allowed the 

 three natives to clamber upon his back, and 

 who obediently moved through the jungle and 

 across the plain to the hut by the wayside, Mr. 

 Godkin and Dick riding their ponies by his side. 

 Halting at the hut only long enough to pay the 

 host for his kindness and to bid him good-by, the company took 

 up their march to Lucknow, which was reached without incident 

 worth mentioning. There they found their agent had bestowed 

 most excellent care on the precious curiosities sent to him. 



It was an easy matter to arrange for their shipment down the 

 Ganges to Calcutta, which was reached 

 in the course of the following week. 

 They were reshipped thence on an En- 

 glish vessel to London, from which point 

 they arrived at New York in good 

 condition. 



Dick Brownell and Mr. Godkin ar- 

 rived on the same vessel that brought 

 the curiosities, in whose capture I trust 

 you have felt some interest, and in the 

 telling of which I hope you have received 

 not only entertainment but instruction. 

 You will understand that the work of 

 my friends in Africa and India was mainly 

 the capture of wild animals, but my rec- 

 ord of their doings would not be satis- 

 factory without a reference to some of 

 the interesting birds which they brought 

 home. It would not have been worth Tun DINORNIS. 



