THE ROGUE ELEPHANT
"Sahibs! Sahibs! The elephant!"
At first the boys looked behind him, taking it for granted that he was running from the danger. But at his gestures they whirled, and there Charlie saw a sight that he never forgot.
Breaking slowly and deliberately from the forest to their left, three hundred yards from where they stood, was an elephant. But no ordinary tusker, this. To the startled imaginations of the two boys it seemed that the tremendous brute towered far above them; in reality, he was over thirteen feet tall, but his immense tusk and huge flapping ears increased his terrific aspect two-fold.
"Jumping sandhills!" breathed Charlie. He heard Jack give a startled gasp at his side.
They were up-wind, and the elephant not only heard but saw them. For a moment he stood, and the boys were so awed by that terrible sight that they forgot to shoot. With his great trunk flung far up, those twelve-foot tusks stretched far up, and the great semi-circular ears lifted up until they almost met above his head, he seemed like some prehistoric monster from thousands of years ago.
Watching the evil glitter of the little red eyes, Charlie stood as if paralyzed. He realized how the primitive men must have felt when they stood face to face with some huge mammoth, hurling against him their stone-tipped spears and wielding stone axes.
The very thought woke him to himself, bringing back to mind the gun in his hands. Jack stood, awestruck at that fearsome sight, and Charlie yelled at him. As he did so, the rogue elephant curled forward his trunk and trumpeted loud and shrill—a wild scream of rage and defiance that sent the chattering monkeys scurrying in frightened silence.
"Shoot, sahibs!" implored the sweating Amir Ali, not daring to infringe the rules himself.
Once again the elephant trumpeted, and broke forward with a lurch that sent the trees crashing down around him. Jack, trembling with buckfever, flung up his gun and let go both barrels at once. The shock sent him over backward with a groan.
Charlie waited an instant. He knew that Amir was helping Jack up, but those two cordite bullets had not stopped the great rogue—if, indeed, they had hit him at all. As it proved, both bullets had merely raked along his side. Then he charged—terribly, deadly, asking and receiving no quarter from these puny men who dared to stand before him.
For that instant Charlie felt a wild inclination to turn and run. Then he conquered himself and became cool as he heard the click of Jack's rifle-breech behind him. Up went his Holland, and aiming for the elephant's right fore-leg, he pulled trigger.
Without pausing to see the effect, he followed it instantly with the second ball. During one brief moment it seemed that neither had taken effect, and with feverish energy Charlie pressed home two fresh shells. That awe-inspiring beast was a hundred and fifty yards away, and each second seemed an hour. But, just as Jack stepped forward and fired again, the great beast rocked and went down.
Both bullets had struck his fore-leg, shattering it. A wild thrill of hope ran through Charlie and he leaped forward. But the rogue had vitality beyond the ordinary, vitality and a tremendous raging strength that carried him to his feet again. For an instant he stood, lurching and rocking on three legs, trumpeting shrilly until the woods re-echoed, and then the horrified Charlie saw him plunge forward, trunk thrown out.
Again Jack fired, and splinters of skin and bone flew from the rogue's head. Charlie realized full well that his only hope lay in crippling the terrible beast, crippling him so that he could advance no farther. A hundred yards away now, and as he raised the big rifle slowly, mist blurred his sight for a moment. All depended on those two last shots in his rifle.
The mist cleared away. It seemed that the great beast was towering over him, reaching for him with that terrible trunk. But he resisted the temptation to fire at the head, and drew a careful bead on the left fore-shoulder.
Charlie never remembered firing those two shots. The next thing he knew, the rogue was standing before him, then the great head went down with a shrill scream of pain and anger, the mighty form crumpled, and with a crash that shook the very earth beneath them the rogue elephant toppled forward.
Something long and white flashed past, and from behind came a sudden scream of pain. Whirling, Charlie saw Amir Ali, who had stuck to them bravely, stagger away and sink down. As the elephant dropped, his impetus and the tremendous weight of his gigantic body had snapped off short one of the ends of his tusks, the severed ivory flying forward and striking the Gurkha in the head.
Charlie ran to the man's side, but at a shout from Jack left him and sprang up. The rogue was not dead yet. Fighting to the last, he was trying to rise to his shattered knees, trumpeting till the woods rang again with the horrible screams. Jack was dashing around to his side for a finishing shot, and Charlie watched. Despite himself, he could not help feeling a throb of pity for the great animal, rogue and destroyer though he might be, struggling there so desperately to rise.
And, impossible though it seemed, the elephant actually regained his feet. But even as he did so the shattered fore-legs crumpled up again, and with a low muttering moan of pain he went down. A moment later Jack fired, twice, placing each bullet behind the left shoulder.
Charlie saw the mighty trunk go up, but no sound issued forth. The red eyes seemed to meet his as with one tremendous effort the rogue lurched up once more, then the huge ears sagged down, the trunk frothed forth bloody foam and fell in the dust, and with a single groan the elephant went over on his side, dead.
Charlie's first thought was for Amir Ali. Reaching the man's side, he pulled the stopper from his canteen and poured water over the Gurkha's head, which was flowing with blood. The wound, however, proved to be slight and the man was but stunned. Charlie gazed down at the foot-long sliver of ivory, and rose. He felt unable to do more, and glanced around for Jack. The other was sitting in the grass, gazing at the dead rogue.
Feeling his knees growing weak with the reaction, Charlie staggered to his side and sank down. For a few moments neither boy spoke. There was something terrible about having killed such an animal, something that oppressed them both with a feeling that it was not yet over, that at any moment he might rise and come at them.
Charlie tried to speak, but his throat was dry. He had emptied his canteen over Amir, and caught that of Jack. Taking a swallow, he forced the water on Jack, and a moment later the boys rose to their feet.
"I'm kind of sorry," was all Jack could find to say, as he stared down at the brute who had lived so badly and died so well. Charlie shared his feeling, but a moment later a loud gun-shot came to his ears. He remembered the other party, and raising his gun, fired twice in the air.
"Buck up, old man," he said, with a shaky laugh. "The General will be here in a minute, and he'll give us what for. The old boy died game, Jack—but he had it coming to him. Just remember Mowbray."
Jack nodded without speaking. Then, from the forest, not behind but ahead of them, broke a group of yelling Masai headed by Bakari, running on the spoor of the rogue elephant. Behind, trying to hold them back from too close pursuit, ran the figure of Schoverling.
Both explorer and natives paused together as they grasped the scene before them. Jack and Charlie stood at the side of the dead beast, still pale with the strain of their terrific battle. Behind lay the motionless form of Amir Ali, his beard sticking up in the sunlight, the sliver of ivory by his head, while a few yards away the forgotten fire sent up a thin wreath of smoke into the air.
Schoverling was the first to break that awed silence, as on his trail appeared Guru, von Hofe, and the rest, all at full speed. While they came up and paused in amazement, the explorer advanced and held out his hand.
"I congratulate you," he said huskily. Meeting his eye, the two boys found there only honest admiration, as from man to man, and they shook hands without a word. Then von Hofe joined them, shaking hands with a flood of excited German through which broke no word of English, and the boys laughed.
"We thought you'd be pretty sore, General," admitted Charlie a moment later, "about our going off that way. But, honest, we didn't mean to—except at first."
"I understand, boys," smiled the bronzed explorer. "But never mind that—Akram told me all about it when we began to get anxious. We thought you had gone right on the trail of the elephant, which only led us out here, so we kept on as fast as we could. And this is the great Rogue Elephant! How on earth did you boys kill him? Is Amir dead?"
"No, only stunned," said Charlie. Guru and Akram were attending to their injured comrade, who by this time was sitting up, dazed but not badly injured. Before hearing their story, Schoverling despatched Bakari and Guru to bring on the Masai with all speed, while Guru had instructions to inspan and move the camp to this spot, it being possible for the wagon to get around the forest from the south. The Masai who were left, at once fell to work, von Hofe directing them while he listened.
The two boys told the story of the hunt together, freely confessing that at first they had been too much frightened to take good aim. The course of their bullets was followed, von Hofe carefully pocketing the sliver of ivory that had so nearly done for Amir Ali.
"It iss no matter," he said. "I can it fix when I set him up. Ach—vait, vait! My camera!"
He hastily brushed the five Masai off the carcass and photographed it from every angle, then posed the boys with their rifles, each holding out an ear of the huge beast. The elephant had rolled back until its head lay on the ground, trunk extended, between its fore-legs, and the two boys looked and felt very small indeed as they stood on each side of the massive head.
An hour later the remaining Masai arrived and all fell to work on the skinning. The explorer built up the fire, making a great smoke signal that would guide Guru and Gholab for miles, but it was not until evening that the slow ox-team crawled up to them and was outspanned. In place of a zareba, the traps were set out, but there was to be no rest for the skinners. While great fires were lighted, before which strings of elephant meat were roasted, they worked far into the night getting off the skin of the Rogue.
"How long will we be here, Doctor?" asked the explorer anxiously.
"We have not enough men to pare down the skin inside of a week," said the scientist. "However, the wagon can stand the weight, and we can let the paring go. With two days of drying in the sun and one day to rub in the chemicals, we will go."
"Three days," nodded Schoverling, and turned to the boys. "Well, boys, I needn't say that I'm sorry not to have had a shot at the brute, for poor Mowbray's sake, but I'll donate a case with his shattered rifle, his letter, watch, and pictures of the Rogue to the Club when we get back. So you both get the credit for him together, eh?"
"I guess so," said Jack. "I didn't do much to knock him over. Chuck did that. But I got in the two shots that finished him."
"Jack stopped him all right," protested Charlie, "with that bullet in the head, when he charged us on three legs. Honest, General, even after he went down the second time, I was scared stiff when I saw him get up! I thought I was dreaming, for I knew that both my bullets had got him in the knee."
"I should think you would have been scared!" laughed the explorer. "I was scared myself, that day the other bull nearly got us up on Mount Kenia. Well, it's all over now. I guess you boys have gained the biggest share of the credit, but you sure deserve it."
When the boys woke in the morning, the Masai were already hard at work again. At last they got the huge sections of skin off, and the protesting oxen were made to drag off the carcass away from the camp. The hide was thoroughly cleansed, and then staked out to dry in the sun for two days, after which the doctor would attend to it further.
"Doesn't it all seem like a wild old dream to you?" asked Jack that day, as they rode out after an impalla steak. "It's hard to realize that we've done it, Chuck."
"Just the same, we have," laughed Charlie. "Say, when we get back an' show up the pictures we've taken, with the doctor's, won't we raise a howl? I'd like to see that Inspector what's his name?—Inspector Harrington's face when he hears about it! He'll throw a fit!"
"Not him," chuckled Jack ungrammatically but happily. "He'll put out his hand an' say, 'By Jove, allow me to congratulate you! Wonderful!'"
Which, as it turned out, was exactly what he did.