A JOURNEY UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 
383 
Firing rapidly and with unerring accuracy, Colonel Roosevelt 
killed the monster animals and the others took fright and fled. 
It was some time before Colonel Roosevelt could calm down 
his frightened rowers sufflciently to make them row his boat along¬ 
side the dead animals which were floating in the water. Colonel 
Roosevelt had been gone so long that his party in camp had grown 
alarmed and had put out in a launch to search for him. There was 
much anxiety in camp as the hours sped by and neither Colonel 
Roosevelt nor the searching launch was found or heard from. 
TOO VALUABLE TO LEAVE BEHIND. 
At three o'clock the next morning, however, the launch arrived 
back in camp. There had been no sleep among the members of the 
party and they were all on the beach at the first sound of the 
launch’s siren. Colonel Roosevelt had declared when the launch 
came up to him in the far end of the lake that the hippos he had 
killed in his deadly struggle were too fine to lose. He insisted 
that they should be towed back to camp, and it took the launch 
several hours to tow them in where they were eagerly seized upon 
by the Smithsonian members who declared they were the finest 
secured during the entire hunt. 
Colonel Roosevelt’s narrow escape from death, and the time 
taken up in towing the hippos back to camp, had delayed his trip 
to Nairobi and he did not start for that point until the following 
morning. 
While Colonel Roosevelt was not inclined to magnify his 
dangers in his encounters with the hippos, the native boatmen declar¬ 
ed they had been in many close situations but that was the closest. 
The hippos, they said, were in a savage mood and there would have 
been no escape had the boat been overturned. 
The natives were transfixed with surprise at a sight so un¬ 
usual. From the glances which they threw at the wonderful hunter 
whose prowess had accomplished such a marvellous achievement, 
one could readily perceive that in their ignorance they credited 
him with supernatural powers and their awe-inspired devotion was 
heartily given him. The two porters who had accompanied him 
