230 ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST AFRICA chap. 



not killed my elephant, was that I had missed it altogether. 

 But oh, those heavy tusks ! 



Though I had but slight hopes of finding again so soon 

 after scaring our game, I was out again the next morning and 

 met Lorgete at a spot in the bush by arrangement. As I had 

 feared, the elephants had cleared out, and there was no fresh 

 spoor to be found. Lorgete was an unsatisfactory man to 

 hunt with, and always annoyed me a good deal. He was too 

 excitable, and had far too much to say, and a habit of halting 

 every now and then to unburden himself of many irrelevant 

 words, which is particularly vexing when one is intent upon 

 the search for game. To-day he disgusted me with his 

 constant humbug, so much so that I thought he must have 

 been drinking mead. He showed plainly, too, that he was 

 eaten up with jealousy of my much stauncher and more reliable 

 friend Lesiat ; so I was rather glad to get rid of him and 

 return early to camp, especially as Squareface was lame and 

 had foolishly followed me without telling me about it. Later 

 in the day his son, who had just returned from Lesiat's, told 

 me that he had seen the spoor of our yesterday's herd going 

 towards El Bogoi. Under these circumstances I decided to 

 move back in that direction. 



We accordingly shifted our quarters again, but, instead of 

 returning to the main camp, struck across to a point higher up 

 the stream, near to which I knew Baithai's family was now 

 encamped. A newly used path from the water showed us the 

 way to the den — stinking like a hyena's lair — quite near. It 

 is extraordinary what miserable places these Ndorobo camps 

 are ; huts hardly deserving the name — put to shame by many 

 birds' nests — just stuck down in the uncleared scrub without 

 even a shady tree or open space. Baithai and his companions 

 and their women came in just after we got there, the women 

 laden with rotting elephant bones and putrid meat. It seemed 

 he had found a small elephant dead, undoubtedly the one I 

 had shot with my second barrel (and afterwards hit again) the 



