red, that our
hunters felt some apprehensions of danger from the game they were
pursuing.

The spoor grew fresher and fresher. The hunters saw trees turned bottom
upward, the roots exhibiting the marks of the elephant's teeth, and
still wet with the saliva from his vast mouth. They saw broken branches
of the mimosas giving out their odour, that had not had time to waste
itself. They concluded the game could not be distant.

They rounded a point of timber--the Bushman being a little in the
advance.

Suddenly Swartboy stopped and fell back a pace. He turned his face upon
his companions. His eyes rolled faster than ever; but, although his
lips appeared to move, and his tongue to wag, he was too excited to give
utterance to a word. A volley of clicks and hisses came forth, but
nothing articulate!

The others, however, did not require any words to tell them what was
meant. They knew that Swartboy intended to whisper that he had seen "da
oliphant;" so both peeped silently around the bush, and with their own
eyes looked upon the mighty quadruped.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

A ROGUE ELEPHANT.

The elephant was standing in a grove of _mokhala_ trees. These, unlike
the humbler mimosas, have tall naked stems, with heads of thick foliage,
in form resembling an umbrella or parasol. Their pinnate leaves of
delicate green are the favourite food of the giraffe, hence their
botanical appellation of _Acacia giraffae_; and hence also their common
name among the Dutch hunters of "cameel-doorns" (camel-thorns).

The tall giraffe, with his prehensile lip, raised nearly twenty-feet in
the air, can browse upon these trees without difficulty. Not so the
elephant, whose trunk cannot reach so high; and the latter would often
have to imitate the fox in the fable, were he not possessed of a means
whereby he can bring the tempting morsel within reach--that is, simply
by breaking down the tree. This his vast strength enables him to do,
unless when the trunk happens to be one of the largest of its kind.

When the eyes of our hunters first rested upon the elephant, he was
standing by the head of a prostrate mokhala, which he had just broken
off near the root. He was tearing away at the leaves, and filling his
capacious stomach.

As soon as Swartboy recovered the control over his tongue, he ejaculated
in a hurried whisper:--

"Pas op! (take care!) baas Bloom,--hab good care--don't go near um--he
da skellum ole klow. My footy!