174 
IN AFRICA 
back. If he happened to be coming toward us our 
only hope was in killing him before he could charge 
twenty-five feet, and, if we did kill him, to avoid 
being crushed by his body as it plunged forward. 
Without question it was the worst place in the world 
to encounter an elephant. And I prayed that we 
might get into more open forest before we came up 
with the ones we were trailing. You can’t imagine 
how earnestly we all joined in that prayer. 
It was at this unpropitious moment that we heard 
—startlingly near—the sharp crash of a tusk 
against a tree somewhere just ahead. It was a most 
unwelcome sound. There was no way of determin¬ 
ing where the elephant was, for we were hemmed in 
by solid walls of bush and could not have seen an 
elephant ten feet on either side of the narrow trail. 
We also didn’t know whether he was coming or 
going or whether he was on our trail or some other 
one of the maze of trails. 
We quickly prepared for the worst. With our 
three heavy guns we crouched in the trail, waiting 
for the huge bulk of an elephant to loom up before 
us. Then came another thunderous crash to our 
right—and it seemed scarcely fifty yards away. 
Then a shrill squeal of a startled elephant off to our 
left and still another to the rear. Some elephants 
had etidently just caught our scent, and if the rest 
of the elephants became alarmed and started a 
stampede through the bush the situation would be¬ 
come extremely irksome for a man of quiet-loving 
tendencies. The thought of elephants charging 
