FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND ACRES 177 



marked the course of a frenzied or frightened ele- 

 phant, and to our intense relief the sounds dimin- 

 ished as the animal receded. I don't think I was 

 ever so frightened in my life. But I had company. 

 I didn't monopolize all the fright that was used in 

 those few seconds of terror. 



We then decided that there was no sane excuse 

 for hunting elephants under such conditions. We 

 at least demanded that we ought to see what we 

 were hunting rather than blindly stumble through 

 dense bush with elephants all around us. So we 

 beat a masterly retreat, not without two more seri- 

 ous threats from the hidden elephants. A boy was 

 sent up a tree to try to locate the elephants, but even 

 up there it was impossible to distinguish anything 

 in the mass of vegetation around. We fired guns 

 to frighten away the animals, but at each report 

 there was only a restless rustle in the brush that said 

 that they were still there and waiting, perhaps as 

 badly scared as we were. 



My second elephant experience came the next 

 day. 



We started forth again, with a single tent, our 

 guides and gunbearers, a cook and a couple of tent 

 boys and twenty porters. This time we politely 

 ignored all elephant trails in the dense bush and 

 pushed on through the forest. Here it was in- 

 finitely better, for one could see some distance in 

 all directions. We climbed steadily for a couple 

 of thousand feet, always in forest so wild and grand 

 and beautiful as to exceed all dreams of what an 



