174 IN AFRICA 



back. If he happened to be coming toward us our 

 only hope was in killing him before he could charge 

 twenty-five feet, and, if we did kill him, to avoid 

 being crushed by his body as it plunged forward. 

 Without question it was the worst place in the world 

 to encounter an elephant. And I prayed that we 

 might get into more open forest before we came up 

 with the ones we were trailing. You can't imagine 

 how earnestly we all joined in that prayer. 



It was at this unpropitious moment that we heard 

 startlingly near the sharp crash of a tusk 

 against a tree somewhere just ahead. It was a most 

 unwelcome sound. There was no way of determin- 

 ing where the elephant was, for we were hemmed in 

 by solid walls of bush and could not have seen an 

 elephant ten feet on either side of the narrow trail. 

 We also didn't know whether he was coming or 

 going or whether he was on our trail or some other 

 one of the maze of trails. 



We quickly prepared for the worst. With our 

 three heavy guns we crouched in the trail, waiting 

 for the huge bulk of an elephant to loom up before 

 us. Then came another thunderous crash to our 

 right and it seemed scarcely fifty yards away. 

 Then a shrill squeal of a startled elephant off to our 

 left and still another to the rear. Some elephants 

 had evidently just caught our scent, and if the rest 

 of the elephants became alarmed and started a 

 stampede through the bush the situation would be- 

 come extremely irksome for a man of quiet-loving 

 tendencies. The thought of elephants charging 



