"Never mind!" called Mr. Boom. "Maybe this fence has a hole in it. We'll run along it and find out."
"Why can't we turn around and go back?" asked Gumble-umble of Tum Tum, behind whom he was now running.
"Because the hunters are behind us," said Tum Tum. "If we turned back, they would surely catch us. The only thing to do is to run on."
Tum Tum was beginning to be a smart elephant, you see. He knew many things about danger. But, had he only known it, there was something he did not know—and this was that he and the others were, even then, running right into a trap.
On and on rushed the elephants. The two lines of fences that had been far apart, were now so close together that they could both easily be seen at once. It was like going down a long lane, in the cow pasture, with a fence on either side.
Then Mr. Boom saw the danger.
"Go back! Go back!" called the big leader elephant. "Go back!"
But it was too late. Right in front of the elephants was a big round place, like a baseball park, with a high fence all around it—a very strong fence. There was a gate by which the elephants could be driven into this park, only it was a trap, and not a park. And there was no way out of it. The fence ran all about it, except this one hole. And through that hole the elephants were being driven.
"Go back! Go back!" cried Tum Tum, waving his trunk at the other elephants as Mr. Boom was doing.
But the elephants were afraid to go back because the hunters were rushing up behind them. The hunters had driven the elephants into the trap, and were going to keep them there.