A THRILLING CHARGE 
201 
I could reach it. There seemed to be from seven to 
ten of them, but they soon disappeared in the trees, 
going at a fast swinging walk. Hassan, my first 
gunbearer, stopped to slip a couple of solid shells in 
the gun while I ran to the top of a hill in the hope 
of catching sight of the herd. But they had dis¬ 
appeared entirely. We soon found the trail 
strongly marked in the dew-covered grass. My sais 
then appeared with my horse. He had seen two ele¬ 
phants and they had taken alarm at his scent and 
were rapidly fleeing. So I galloped hack to camp 
to tell the rest of the party and to prepare for a 
systematic pursuit. 
After breakfast, with Akeley, Stephenson, Clark 
and our gunbearers, the trail was again picked up 
where I had left it. It was then a little past nine 
and the elephants had two hours’ start of us. Their 
trail indicated that they were moving fast and so 
we prepared for a long chase. For nearly two hours 
we followed, Akeley tracking with remarkable pre¬ 
cision. Sometimes the trail was faint and merged 
with older trails, but by looking carefully the fresh 
trail was kept. Soon we began to see newly broken 
branches from the trees which indicated that the 
elephants were getting quieted down and were be¬ 
ginning to feed. It must have been about eleven 
o’clock when Stephenson saw the herd far across on 
another slope. There were two of the animals dis¬ 
tinctly visible and another partly visible. They were 
resting under some of the many acacia trees that 
dappled the slope of the hill. We stopped to ex- 
