CHAPTER II 



' BWANA, dembo ! ' (Master, elephant!) whis- 

 pered Simba, my tracker bubbling over with ex 

 citement, as he wakened me. 



' Dembo, my boy, wappe ? ' (Elephant, my boy, 

 where ? ) I asked, opening my eyes and rising at 

 once to a sitting posture. 



' Karebu, bwana ! (Near, master ! ) I have 

 just heard the crash of a falling tree a few 

 hundred yards away.' 



Grasping the situation, I listened intently for a 

 few minutes, heard the snap of a breaking branch, 

 and knew that Simba had not erred in his sur- 

 mise ; but as it was only four o'clock in the 

 morning and nothing could be done till dawn, 

 some two hours later, I turned over, pulled my 

 blanket about me and fell soundly asleep again. 



During the whole of the previous day we had 

 kept doggedly on the spoor of four big tuskers, 



16 



