THE COLONEL KILLS THREE ELEPHANTS 143 



ton, who is managing 1 the Roosevelt expedition, and 

 Edmund Heller, the taxidermist of the expedition, 

 came to our camp on the fourteenth of November 

 to have luncheon and to talk over plans whereby 

 Colonel Roosevelt was to kill one or more elephants 

 for Mr. Akeley's American museum group of five 

 or six elephants. The details were all arranged 

 and later in the afternoon the colonel and his party 

 left for their own camp, only a short distance from 

 ours. 



Mr. Akeley, with one of our tents and about 

 forty porters, followed later in the evening and 

 spent the night at the Roosevelt camp. The fol- 

 lowing morning Colonel Roosevelt, Mr. Akeley, 

 Mr. Tarlton and Kermit, with two tents and forty 

 porters and gunbearers, started early in the hope 

 of again finding the trail of the small herd of ele- 

 phants that had been seen the day before. The 

 trail was picked up after a short time and the party 

 of hunters expected that it would be a long and 

 wearisome pursuit, for it was evident that the ele- 

 phants had become nervous and were moving stead- 

 ily along without stopping to feed. In such cases 

 they frequently travel forty or fifty miles before 

 settling down to quiet feeding again. 



The country was hilly, deep with dry grass, and 

 badly cut up with small gullies and jagged out- 

 croppings of rock on the low ridges. At all times 

 the ears of the hunting party were alert for any 

 sound that would indicate the proximity of the 

 herd, but for several hours no trumpeting, nor in- 



