146 
IN AFRICA 
Among elephant hunters it is considered more 
dangerous to attack a cow elephant than a bull, for 
the cow is always ready and eager to defend its 
calf, hence when Colonel Roosevelt prepared to 
open fire on a cow elephant, accompanied by a calf, 
at a range of thirty yards, in a district where the 
highest tree was within reach of an elephant’s trunk, 
the situation was one fraught with tense uncer¬ 
tainty. 
Colonel Roosevelt is undoubtedly a brave man. 
The men who have hunted with him in Africa say 
that he has never shown the slightest sign of fear 
in all the months of big game hunting that they 
have done together. He “holds straight,” as they 
say in shooting parlance, and at short range, where 
his eyesight is most effective, he shoots accurately. 
This, then, was the dramatic situation at about 
twelve o’clock noon on November fifteenth, eight 
miles east of the Nzoia River, near Mount Elgon: 
Eight cow elephants, two totos, one ex-president 
with a double-barreled cordite rifle thirty yards 
away, supported by three other hunters similarly 
armed, with native gunbearers held in the rear as a 
supporting column. 
The colonel opened fire; the biggest cow dropped 
to her knees and in an instant the air was thunder¬ 
ous with the excited “milling” of the herd of ele¬ 
phants. For several anxious minutes the spot was 
the scene of much confusion, and when quiet was 
once more restored Colonel Roosevelt had killed 
three elephants and Kermit had killed one of the 
