A THRILLING CHARGE 203 



of the grass and noisily ran away, giving the alarm. 

 The elephants began feeling in the air with their 

 trunks and their ears began to wave uneasily. Fi- 

 nally they turned and seemed about to go away. 

 Then Fred saw, a short distance to the right, some 

 more elephants that had previously been hidden by 

 the trees. We both whispered to Ake to stop, but 

 he either did not hear us on account of his heavy sun 

 hat or else was too intent upon the elephants in 

 front to heed. 



"Ake," whispered Fred, "there's a good bull over 

 there with good tusks. Wait a minute." But Ake, 

 camera in position, continued to advance and so we 

 followed. The elephants, a big cow and a half- 

 grown one, were now facing us with ears wide 

 spread. They looked very nasty. I thought they 

 would turn and run away and was not uneasy about 

 the outcome. But to my great surprise they started 

 toward us, first slowly and then at a rapid trot, 

 steadily gaining in swiftness. It was a real charge 

 and we yelled to scare them off. The big cow was 

 in the lead and she had not the slightest intention 

 of being scared. Her one idea was to annihilate us. 

 We raised our rifles and continued to yell, but on 

 she rushed. She was only thirty yards away when 

 Jimmy fired, Fred fired, and then I. The huge 

 animal sank on her four knees and the half-grown 

 one turned off and stopped, confused and angry. 

 Akeley had got a splendid photograph of the 

 charging cow and now he took one of the smaller 

 beast before we approached the cow. Upon our ad- 



