It takes a hippo quite a while to go to sleep after eating a negro, as you can imagine, they are so indigestible, and it was annoying to stand around in the mud and wait, but we finally got two specimens of the hippo into the cages, and we killed two more for food for the negroes, who like the flavor of hippo meat, after the hippos have been battered on negroes.
On the way back to camp we sighted a herd of elephants, and Pa said he would go out and surround a couple of them and drive them into camp. Mr. Hagenbach tried to reason with Pa against the suicidal act, in going alone into a herd of wild elephants, but Pa said since his experience with old Bolivar, the circus elephant, he felt that he had a mysterious power over elephants that was marvelous, and so poor Pa went out alone, promising to bring some elephants into camp.
Well, he made good, all right. We went on to camp and got our hippos put to bed, and fed the lions and tigers, and were just sitting down to our evening meal, when there was a roaring sound off where Pa had surrounded the elephants; the air was full of dust, and the ground trembled, and we could see the whole herd of about forty wild elephants charging on our camp, bellowing and making a regular bedlam.
When the herd got pretty near us, we all climbed trees, except the negro husband and his wives, and they took to the jungle.
Say, those animals did not do a thing to our camp. They rushed over the tents, laid down and rolled over on our supper, which was spread out on the ground, tipped over the cages containing the animals we had captured, found the gasoline barrel and filled their trunks with gasoline and squirted it all over the place, and rolled the gasoline on the fire, and away the elephants went with gasoline fire pouring out of their trunks, into the woods, bellowing, and when the dust and smoke cleared away, and we climbed down out of the trees and righted up the cages, here came Pa astride a zebra, playing on a mouth organ, “There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight,” which had frightened the elephants into a stampede.
Pa, Astride of a Zebra, Had Frightened the Elephants Into a Stampede by Playing “A Hot Time” on a Mouth Organ.
Mr. Hagenbach stopped Pa’s zebra, and Pa said, “Didn’t you catch any of ’em? I steered ’em right to camp, and thought you fellows would head ’em off, and catch a few.”
I never saw Mr. Hagenbach mad before. He looked at Pa as though he could eat him alive, and said, “Well, old man, you have raised hell on your watch, sure enough.” And then Pa complained because supper was not ready. Gee, but Pa is getting more gall all the time.