"Our chance for what?" asked Umboo, speaking in elephant talk, of course, and which the Indian keepers did not always understand.
"This is our chance to run away and go back to the jungle," went on Keedah. "When the men are not looking, after we have hauled out a few big logs, we will go away and hide. At night we can run off to the jungle."
"No," said Umboo, shaking his trunk, "I am not going to do it. If we run away they will find us and bring us back. Besides, I like it in the lumber yard. It is fun to pile up the big logs, and lay them straight."
"Pooh! I don't think so," said Keedah, who had not given up all his wild ways. "I am going to run!"
And so, watching his chance, when the Indian men were not looking, Keedah sneaked off into the dark part of the woods. In a little while he was missed, and the keepers, with shouts, started after him. They tied Umboo to a tree with chains, leaving him there while they went to hunt Keedah.
"They need not have chained me," thought Umboo. "I would not run away.
I like my men friends too much, for they are good to me."
The keepers got other elephants and hunted Keedah in the forest. For three days they searched for him, and at last they found him and brought him back. For Keedah had forgotten some of his wildness, and did not know so well how to keep away from the men who were after him, as he had known when he lived in the herd, with Tusker to lead the way.
So Keedah, tired and dirty, and hungry too, it must be said—for he had not found good things to eat in the woods—Keedah was brought back. And he was kept chained up for a week, and given only water and not much food. This was to tame him down, and make him learn that it did not pay to run off when he was taken to the teakwood forest.
"I wish I had done as you did, and stayed," said Keedah sorrowfully to
Umboo. "I am not going to run away any more."
So Umboo and the other wild elephants who were caught at the same time as he was, stayed around the lumber camp, and did work for their white and black masters. Sometimes a few of the elephants were sold, and taken away by Indian Princes, to live in stables near the palaces, to have gold and silver cloths fastened on their backs, and then the howdahs, in which rode the rich Indians, would be strapped on.