COMING ON A HERD AND THE RESULT. 1 53 
we had tiffed we took up the tmck. It was not long before 
we ^ot up to the herd feeding in some open forest ; I 
pointed out the tusker to Michael, whose turn it was, and 
who went down to him, I keeping more to the left where 
there were two or three females ; on seeing him raise his 
rifie 1 cocked mine, when bang it went off. I had got 
into the bad habit of cocking my rifle without noise by 
drawing the trigger back as I pulled up the hammer— a most 
dangerous plan, 1 was most awfully disgusted at the con- 
tretemps and fully expected that Michael would lose the 
tusker by it. I ran back to get another rifle and returned 
just in time to see an old female blundering over a prostrate 
companion. They had given me the Laing rifle and 1 
bowled her over with a shot behind the ear, she falling on 
the top of the dead one. The row was now something 
awful, and to my astonishment 1 found in this short time 
Michael had dropped the tusker and a brace of females. The 
row was caused by two little elephant calves; one had got its 
tail jammed between the two dead females, which made him 
sing out most lustily, and the other joined in the chorus ; 
added to this, were the groans and grunts of one of the 
fallen elephants and the roaring of another tusker a short 
distance off, which Michael ran up to and shot. We then 
ran some distance after another tusker till we were both 
quite out of breath, and when we stopped, found ourselves 
near one of the calves. The little beast was roaring like half 
a dozen tigers — such a queer little brute about the size of a 
wild boar, and looking like an elephant dwarf at least two 
hundred years old. We laid ourselves out to catch him, and 
now commenced as laughable a scene as ever occurred. The 
little brute was the most perfect caricature of an enraged 
