eeks,
for vines were growing through, but they could not be as old as the
village itself. He called Jack over to look at it.

"This must be where Mowbray hit off to after the rogue," exclaimed Jack
excitedly. "We're plumb on his tracks. I'm goin' to let off a gun, rogue
or no rogue. There--that's the bunch now!"

To their ears came the faint report of a heavy gun, borne over the
trees, Jack lifted his own Hammond, and sent off both barrels in
response.

"That'll get him," he chuckled as he threw out the shells and reloaded.
"Now for the fire."

But as he turned away, a startled cry from Amir Ali drew their
attention.

CHAPTER XIX

THE ROGUE ELEPHANT

"Sahibs! Sahibs! The elephant!"

At first the boys looked behind him, taking it for granted that he was
running from the danger. But at his gestures they whirled, and there
Charlie saw a sight that he never forgot.

Breaking slowly and deliberately from the forest to their left, three
hundred yards from where they stood, was an elephant. But no ordinary
tusker, this. To the startled imaginations of the two boys it seemed
that the tremendous brute towered far above them; in reality, he was
over thirteen feet tall, but his immense tusk and huge flapping ears
increased his terrific aspect two-fold.

"Jumping sandhills!" breathed Charlie. He heard Jack give a startled
gasp at his side.

They were up-wind, and the elephant not only heard but saw them. For a
moment he stood, and the boys were so awed by that terrible sight that
they forgot to shoot. With his great trunk flung far up, those
twelve-foot tusks stretched far up, and the great semi-circular ears
lifted up until they almost met above his head, he seemed like some
prehistoric monster from thousands of years ago.

Watching the evil glitter of the little red eyes, Charlie stood as if
paralyzed. He realized how the primitive men must have felt when they
stood face to face with some huge mammoth, hurling against him their
stone-tipped spears and wielding stone axes.

The very thought woke him to himself, bringing back to mind the gun in
his hands. Jack stood, awestruck at that fearsome sight, and Charlie
yelled at him. As he did so, the rogue elephant curled forward his trunk
and trumpeted loud and shrill--a wild scream of rage and defiance that
sent the chattering monkeys scurrying in frightened silence.

"Shoot, sahibs!" implored the sweating Amir Ali, not daring to infringe
the rules himself.