A THRILLING CHARGE 201 



I could reach it. There seemed to be from seven to 

 ten of them, but they soon disappeared in the trees, 

 going at a fast swinging walk. Hassan, my first 

 gunbearer, stopped to slip a couple of solid shells in 

 the gun while I ran to the top of a hill in the hope 

 of catching sight of the herd. But they had dis- 

 appeared entirely. We soon found the trail 

 strongly marked in the dew-covered grass. My sais 

 then appeared with my horse. He had seen two ele- 

 phants and they had taken alarm at his scent and 

 were rapidly fleeing. So I galloped back to camp 

 to tell the rest of the party and to prepare for a 

 systematic pursuit. 



After breakfast, with Akeley, Stephenson, Clark 

 and our gunbearers, the trail was again picked up 

 where I had left it. It was then a little past nine 

 and the elephants had two hours' start of us. Their 

 trail indicated that they were moving fast and so 

 we prepared for a long chase. For nearly two hours 

 we followed, Akeley tracking w r ith remarkable pre- 

 cision. Sometimes the trail was faint and merged 

 with older trails, but by looking carefully the fresh 

 trail w r as kept. Soon w r e began to see newly broken 

 branches from the trees which indicated that the 

 elephants were getting quieted down and were be- 

 ginning to feed. It must have been about eleven 

 o'clock when Stephenson saw the herd far across on 

 another slope. There were two of the animals dis- 

 tinctly visible and another partly visible. They were 

 resting under some of the many acacia trees that 

 dappled the slope of the hill. We stopped to ex- 



