peting wildly; and you have no conception how active and
agile these creatures can be, if you have seen only the slow, sluggish
things that are in our Zoos at home! So terrible was the sound of this
elephant's approach, that the ranks of the khedda elephants were thrown
into some confusion, and the mahowts had difficulty in preventing them
from turning tail and running away. Our leader, therefore, ordered the
gladiator, Chand Moorut, to the front. Indeed, Chand ordered himself to
the front, for no sooner did he hear the challenge of the tusker, than
he dashed forward alone to accept it, and his mahowt found it almost
impossible to restrain him. Fortunately the jungle helped the mahowt by
hiding the tusker from view.

"When the wild elephant caught sight of the line of the khedda, he went
at it with a mighty rush, crashing through bush and brake, and
overturning small trees like straws, until he got into the dry bed of a
stream. There he stopped short, for the colossal Chand Moorut suddenly
appeared and charged him. The wild tusker, however, showed the white
feather. He could not, indeed, avoid the shock altogether, but,
yielding to it, he managed to keep his legs, turned short round, and
fled past his big foe. Chand Moorut had no chance with the agile fellow
in a race. He was soon left far behind, while the tusker charged
onward. The matchlock-men tried in vain to check him. As he approached
the line, the khedda elephants fled in all directions. Thrusting aside
some, and overturning others that came in his way, he held on his
course, amid the din of shouting and rattling of shots, and finally, got
clear away!"

"Oh, _what_ a pity!" exclaimed Junkie.

"But that did not matter much," continued Jackman; "for news was brought
in that the herd we had been after were not in that valley at all, but
in the next one, and had probably heard nothing of all the row we had
been making; so we collected our forces, and went after them.

"Soon we got to the pass leading into the valley, and then, just beyond
it, came quite suddenly on a band of somewhere about thirty wild
elephants. They were taken quite by surprise, for they were feeding at
the time on a level piece of ground of considerable extent. As it was
impossible to surround them, away the whole khedda went helter-skelter
after them. It was a tremendous sight. The herd had scattered in all
directions, so that our khedda was also scattered. Each hunting
elep