56 
THREE .^^OXT^IS IN PAHANG 
found no signs of rhinoceros tracks old or new, although we 
saw any quantity of their old wallows. Wan Hadji was 
obviousl)' snrprised and disappointed, saying that when he had 
been up here about two years ago hunting for rubber vines his 
party came iicrojis rhinoceroses ctintinuall}-. I su*^gestcd to 
him that Malays or Sakais had been up there hunting rhin- 
oceroses and had practically exterminated them, but he would 
not admit that at the time. IVesently we came across the 
tracks of a big solitary elephant which appeared to have passed 
through Pamah Ruan the previous day, aUht>u.i;h owing to the 
very heavy rain during the night the spoor was a good deal 
obliterated. There being no signs of rhinoceros, 1 decided to 
follow the elephant tracks. After three hours hard tramping 
we thought we got the smell of stale smoke, and a few mo- 
ments afterwards to our utmost astonishment we came out 
on to our own camp and the carcase of the elephant. 
The tracks which we had followed passed a few yards 
behind our camp— we had noticed these tracks yesterday but 
thout^ht that they had been made by the beast that had been 
shot— and following them ou a little distance they led us to the 
spot where tlje second elephant had been bathing. Here was 
the solution to the puzzle of the previous day, here was the 
reason why we had seen no elephant with heavy tusks— the 
big bull had given ns the slip. Our mistake was an excusable 
one. We had followed two tuskers with much the same si;:ed 
tracks which had been joined by a third which had come from 
an entirely different direction quite unknown or unsuspected 
by us. Of course had we after the death of the first bull and 
the imaginary death of the second carefully examined all the 
tracks we should have found that the biggest bull bad gone 
away to the right up a steep hill and we had never seen him at 
all. * But we thought that having seen two elephants there 
were no more to bother about consequently did not take much 
notice of the tracks. We lost no time now in casting round 
and soon found where a line of big tracks took us up a bill 
side and through a narrow pass into the sides of which the 
bull had thrust his tusks in half a do;!en places. I thought 
there was no mistake this time anyway, but alas! it w^as nearly 
one o'clock and the tracks we were on were twenty-four hours 
old. We followed these tracks for about half an hour when we 
heard an elephant trumpet quite close to us followed almost 
immediately by another- We were close to the herd. Anathe- 
mising my' luck— I did not want the herd at all— we left the 
old tracks and went towards the sound, but the tusker was not 
with them. They got our wind and moved slowly away. It 
was too late in the afternoon to hope to get up to the tusker 
