the herd far across on another slope.
There were two of the animals distinctly visible and another partly
visible. They were resting under some of the many acacia trees that
dappled the slope of the hill. We stopped to examine them with our
glasses. One seemed to have no tusks, but we finally saw that it had
very small ones. The other and larger one had one good tusk and one that
was broken off. After about twenty minutes we left our horses and with
only our gunbearers moved across toward them, thinking that there must
be others that we had not yet seen. The wind was bad, sometimes sweeping
up in our direction through the depression between the two slopes and a
moment later coming from another direction. At one time the wind blew
from us directly toward the elephants and we expected to see them take
alarm and run away. But they did not. We circled around and approached
them from a better direction and advanced to within a couple of hundred
yards without being detected. We then stopped for a conference. If there
was a young bull I was to kill it for the Akeley group; if there was a
large bull Stephenson was to kill it for himself; if there were only
cows we were not to shoot unless absolutely necessary. In this event,
Akeley was to take his camera, and with "Fred," "Jimmy" Clark, and I as
escorts with our double-barreled cordite rifles, was to advance until he
could get a photograph that would show an elephant the full size of the
plate. If the elephants charged we were to yell and try to turn them
without shooting; if they came on we were to shoot to hurt, but not to
kill.

Fred was on one side of "Ake," Jimmy on another, and I on Fred's left.
Thus we slowly moved toward the elephants. A reedbuck was startled out
of the grass and noisily ran away, giving the alarm. The elephants began
feeling in the air with their trunks and their ears began to wave
uneasily. Finally they turned and seemed about to go away. Then Fred
saw, a short distance to the right, some more elephants that had
previously been hidden by the trees. We both whispered to Ake to stop,
but he either did not hear us on account of his heavy sun hat or else
was too intent upon the elephants in front to heed.

[Photograph: A Nandi Spearman]

[Photograph: By courtesy of W.D. Boyce In the Deep Jungle Growth]

[Photograph: As the Elephant Fell]

"Ake," whispered Fred, "there's a good bull over there with good tusks.
Wait a minute." But Ake, camera in posit