n away from life in any shape or size.

The trunk came up. Mike raised the gun. He heard the monster roar, far
away, and then he heard another sound that must be the gun's
discharge, and something hit him in the shoulder and knocked him down.
Recoil? Yes, because the elephant wasn't there any more; he could hear
the crashing and thrashing down below, over the rim of the river bank.

Mike stood up. He saw the boy running now, running back to the bearers
huddled along the edge of the trail.

He rubbed his shoulder, picked up his gun, reloaded. The sounds from
below had ceased. Slowly, Mike advanced to the lip of the bank and
stared down.

The bull elephant had fallen and rolled into the wallow once more. It
had taken a direct hit, just beneath the right ear, and even as Mike
watched, its trunk writhed feebly like a dying serpent, then fell
forward into the mud. The gigantic ears twitched, then flickered and
flopped, and the huge body rolled and settled.

Suddenly Mike began to cry.

Damn it, he hadn't _wanted_ to shoot. If the elephant hadn't charged
like that--

But the elephant _had_ to charge. Just as he _had_ to shoot. That was
the whole secret. The secret of life. And the secret of death, too.

Mike turned away, facing the east. Kenyarobi was east, and he'd be
going there now. Nothing to hold him here in the forests any longer.
He wouldn't even wait for the big feast. To hell with elephant-meat,
anyway. His hunting days were over.

Mike walked slowly up the trail to the waiting boys.

And behind him, in the wallow, the flies settled down on the lifeless
carcass of the last elephant in the world.

8. Harry Collins--2029

The guards at Stark Falls were under strict orders not to talk. Each
prisoner here was exercised alone in a courtyard runway, and meals
were served in the cells. The cells were comfortable enough, and while
there were no telescreens, books were available--genuine, old-style
books which must have been preserved from libraries dismantled fifty
years ago or more. Harry Collins found no titles dated later than
1975. Every day or so an attendant wheeled around a cart piled high
with the dusty volumes. Harry read to pass the time.

At first he kept anticipating his trial, but after a while he almost
forgot about that possibility. And it was well over a year before he
got a chance to tell his story to anyone.

When his opportunity came, his audience did not consist of judge or
jury,