Umboo, the Elephant

by Howard Roger Garis

"I do not know," answered Mrs. Stumptail. "Perhaps the hunters did, so we could not get into their gardens and eat the corn and other things that grow there. Very good things grow in the gardens which the white and black men plant, and, more than once in the night, I have broken in and eaten them. But it is dangerous, and Tusker does not want to lead us into danger. We will keep away from the fence."

Now, though the elephants did not know it, this fence was not built to keep elephants out of a garden. There were no gardens in that part of the jungle. The fence was put up by hunters on purpose to turn the elephants back, and soon you shall hear why this was done.

"Are we in danger now?" asked Umboo of his father as they hurried along, close beside Tusker.

"No, I think we are all right now," said the oldest, wisest and largest elephant of the herd. "I am going to lead you to the salt springs, where we can taste the salt of the earth. One way is as good as another, and if the fence stops us on one path we will go a new way. We are going to the salt springs."

Every year the herds of elephants in India come down to eat salt, for they need it to keep them well, as horses and cows do on the farm. And the elephant hunters know this too, and so they get ready to capture the wild elephants when they come down each season to get the salt.

The herd was not going so fast now. Tusker felt that they were well away from the hunters, and, though seeing the fence at first scared him a little, he now thought everything was all right.

"We will have good times when we get to the salt springs," said Tusker to the other elephants. "There we can rest, and the hunters will not shoot us."

"Yes, I am hungry for some salt," said Mrs. Stumptail, for she had been to the springs before, and so had many of the older animals.

Along marched Tusker at the head of the herd, and after him came the others. They, too, were hungry for salt, and Umboo was quite anxious to taste some, for he had had very little, as yet. But he liked it very much, and was anxious for more.

But an hour or so later, when traveling along toward where the salt springs bubbled up in the jungle, Tusker suddenly stopped again. Once more he gave the danger signal through his trunk.