258 
AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 
me rock^ as I stood unsteadily on my perch, and I failed 
to hit the brain. But the bullet, only missing the brain 
by an inch or two, brought the elephant to its knees; as it 
rose I floored it with the second barrel. The blast of the 
big rifle, by the way, was none too pleasant for the other 
men on the log and made Cuninghame’s nose bleed. Re¬ 
loading, I fired twice at the next animal, which was now 
turning. It stumbled' and nearly fell, but at the same 
moment the first one rose again, and I fired both barrels 
into its head, bringing it once more to the ground. Once 
again it rose—an elephant's brain is not an easy mark to 
hit under such conditions—but as it moved slowly off, 
half stunned, I snatched the little Springfield rifle, and 
this time shot true, sending the bullet into its brain. As it 
fell I took another shot at the wounded elephant, now dis¬ 
appearing in the forest, but without effect. 
On walking up to our prize it proved to be not a cow, 
but a good-sized adult (but not old) herd bull, with thick, 
short tusks, weighing about forty pounds apiece. Ordi¬ 
narily, of course, a bull, and not a cow, is what one desires, 
although on this occasion I needed a cow to complete the 
group for the National Museum. However, Heller and 
Cuninghame spent the next few days in preserving the skin, 
which I afterward gave to the University of California; and 
I was too much pleased with our luck to feel inclined to 
grumble. We were back in camp five hours after leaving 
it. Our gun-bearers usually felt it incumbent on them to 
keep a dignified bearing while in our company. But the 
death of an elephant is always a great event; and one of 
the gun-bearers as they walked ahead of us campward, 
soon began to improvise a song, reciting the success of 
