"And I was in a trap also," spoke Snarlie, the striped tiger. "I fell into a deep pit. It was almost like your trap, Umboo, except that the sides were of dirt, and the pit was very deep. I could not jump out. But after a while I did not mind being caught, for I was taken care of by Princess Toto."
"Let us hear how Umboo got out of the trap," said Chako, the monkey.
"How do you know he got out?" asked Humpo, the camel.
"Isn't he here with us now?" asked Chako, who was a very smart monkey. "And if he hadn't got out of the trap he wouldn't be here. Anybody knows that!"
"Oh, yes; that's so," said Humpo, who did not think much, being quite content to eat hay, and let others do most of the talking. "But, all the same," went on the humpy creature, "I should like to hear how Umboo did get out of the trap."
"I'll tell you," said the elephant boy, and he went on with his story.
When the big elephants found, because of the ditch, that they could not get near enough the stockade fence to knock it down with their big heads, they became very wild. They raised their trunks and made loud trumpet sounds through them. They beat the earth with their feet until the ground trembled, and some of them rushed at the gate, which had fallen shut behind them, as they hurried into the trap to get away from the noise.
But the gate, which had no ditch in front of it, was the strongest part of the trap, and the elephants could not batter it down, try as they did. Tusker and the others banged into it, but the gate held firmly.
"Well, if we can't get out, what are we going to do?" asked Umboo of his mother.
"We shall have to stay here until the hunter-men come, I suppose," answered Mrs. Stumptail.