-four inches in length, and nearly as wide--deeply imprinted
in the mud by the enormous weight of the animal's body. Each formed an
immense hole, large enough to have set a gatepost in.

The hunters contemplated the spoor with emotions of pleasure--the more
so that the tracks had been recently made. This was evident. The
displaced mud had not yet crusted, but looked damp and fresh. It had
been stirred within the hour.

Only one elephant had visited the pool that night. There were many old
tracks, but only one fresh spoor,--and that of an old and very large
bull.

Of course the tracks told this much. To make a spoor twenty-four inches
long, requires the animal to be a very large one; and to be very large,
he should be a bull, and an old one too.

Well, the older and larger the better, provided his tusks have not been
broken by some accident. When that happens they are never recovered
again. The elephant _does_ cast his tusks, but only in the juvenile
state, when they are not bigger than lobster's claws; and the pair that
succeeds these is permanent, and has to last him for life--perhaps _for
centuries_--for no one can tell how long the mighty elephant roams over
this sublunary planet. When the tusks get broken--a not uncommon
thing--he must remain toothless or "tuskless" for the rest of his life.
Although the elephant may consider the loss of his huge tusks a great
calamity, were he only a little wiser, he would break them off against
the first tree. It would, in all probability, be the means of
prolonging his life; for the hunter would not then consider him worth
the ammunition it usually takes to kill him.

After a short consultation among the hunters, Swartboy started off upon
the spoor, followed by Von Bloom and Hendrik. It led straight out from
the channel, and across the jungle.

Usually the bushes mark the course of an elephant, where these are of
the sort he feeds upon. In this case he had not fed; but the Bushman,
who could follow spoor with a hound, had no difficulty in keeping on the
track, as fast as the three were able to travel.

They emerged into open glades; and, after passing through several of
these, came upon a large ant-hill that stood in the middle of one of the
openings. The elephant had passed close to the ant-hill--he had stopped
there a while--stay, he must have lain down!

Von Bloom did not know that elephants were in the habit of lying down.
He had always heard it said tha