4 66 



A BATTLE Of GIANTS. 



Jack did not intend to withdraw from the jungle until he had secured a gorilla, 

 and, understanding the nature of the animal as well as he did, he resolved that the 

 hands of the party should be unhampered when the golden opportunity came, if 

 come it should. 



A short distance down the river, which was a tributary of the Gaboon, lay the 

 small boat that had brought the party almost to the camp. By entering this at 

 once, and making good use of their time, the natives ought to deliver the young 

 chimpanzee into the hands of the missionary before night, and return to their camp 

 by noon of the following day. 



Warning them against undue haste or carelessness, Jack and Bob bade the 

 natives good-by, and they quickly disappeared in the jungle, bearing their precious 

 burden between them. 



Although Jack and Bob felt the need of th&presence of the natives, they did not 

 mean to loiter until their return. They were competent to the task of hunting any 

 game, and they set out to do so before Gyp and Hargo had been gone ten minutes. 



Their prime purpose, however, being the capture of a gorilla, they gave little 

 thought to anything else ; but, before they had gone far upon their renewed hunt, 

 they came upon a scene which, for the time, drove everything else from their minds. 



It seemed that a party of elephants were returning from a bath in the muddy 

 river, when they encountered three rhinoceroses on their way after the same luxury. 

 The meeting took place in a sort of rough path in the jungle, not far from the camp 

 of our friends. 



Two of the rhinoceroses turned out for the elephants, but the third, a huge, ugly 

 fellow, refused to give an inch. Thereupon the dozen or more elephants sensibly 

 yielded the path to him. 



All excepting one, a huge bull, who was in just as ugly a mood as the rhino- 

 ceros. Within less than two minutes of their meeting these monarchs of the jungle 

 came together like a couple of animated mountains. 



The rhinoceros ran across the front of the elephant, and flung up his two horns 

 with the purpose of tearing him asunder, but the elephant threw his left foreleg 

 over the huge, flabby neck of the mailed rhinoceros, and, parUy holding him mo- 

 tionless, bore down upon him with such awful power that one of his tusks was 

 driven clean through the victim's body, just back of his shoulders. As the fearful 

 ivory sword was withdrawn it was crimsoned with blood, which streamed down its 

 length and dripped to the ground, while the rhinoceros collapsed like so much 

 mud, killed as utterly as if a thousand tons of rock had crushed him. 



" The only law of the road in Africa is might," said Bob, after the elephant, 

 having contemplated his work for a moment, swung off to join the herd, which 

 viewed tl.3 battle from a point some distance away. 



"That rhinoceros was a fool," remarked Jack; " he was too stubborn to turn 

 out, but preferred to fight, and as a consequence he was knocked out in the first 

 round." 



"A rhinoceros doesn't always make such a failure. Mr. Godkin told me they 



