KERMIT’S ELEPHANT 
255 
CH. X] 
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. W e 
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 camp- 
ward soon began to improvise a song, reciting the 
success of the hunt, the death of the elephant, and the 
power of the rifles ; and gradually, as they got farther 
ahead, the more light-hearted among them began to 
give way to their spirits, and they came into camp 
frolicking, gambolling, and dancing as if they were still 
the naked savages that they had been before they 
became the white man’s followers. 
Two days later Kermit got his bull. He and Tarlton 
had camped about ten miles off in a magnificent forest, 
and late the first afternoon received news that a herd of 
elephants was in the neighbourhood. They were off by 
dawn, and in a few hours came on the herd. It con¬ 
sisted chiefly of cows and calves, but there was one big 
master bull, with fair tusks. It was open forest with 
long grass. By careful stalking they got within thirty 
yards of the bull, behind whom was a line of cows. 
Kermit put both barrels of his heavy double *405 into 
the tusker’s head, but without even staggering him ; 
and as he walked off Tarlton also fired both barrels into 
him, with no more effect; then, as he slowly turned, 
Kermit killed him with a shot in the brain from the 
•405 Winchester. Immediately the cows lifted their 
ears, and began trumpeting and threatening. If they 
had come on in a body at that distance, there was not 
much chance of turning them or of escaping from them ; 
