ast thinker, and in less than two
minutes I had my plan arranged. I stopped short when about two hundred
feet from the cliff, and waited until the herd was fifty feet away.
Then I turned about and ran with all my might up to within two feet of
the cliff, and then turning sharply to the left ran off in that
direction. The elephants, thinking they had me, redoubled their speed,
but failed to notice that I had turned, so quickly was that movement
executed. They failed likewise to notice the cliff, as I had intended.
The consequence was the whole sixty-three of them rushed head first,
bang! with all their force, into the rock. The hill shook with the
force of the blow and the sixty-three elephants fell dead. They had
simply butted their brains out."

[Illustration: "I got nearer and nearer my haven of safety, the
bellowing beasts snorting with rage as they followed." _Chapter IV._]

Here the Baron paused and pulled vigourously on his cigar, which had
almost gone out.

"That was fine," said the Twins.

"What a narrow escape it was for you, Uncle Munch," said Diavolo.

"Very true," said the great soldier rising, as a signal that his story
was done. "In fact you might say that I had sixty-three narrow
escapes, one for each elephant."

"But what became of the ivory?" asked Angelica.

"Oh, as for that!" said the Baron, with a sigh, "I was disappointed in
that. They turned out to be all young elephants, and they had lost
their first teeth. Their second teeth hadn't grown yet. I got only
enough ivory to make one paper cutter, which is the one I gave your
father for Christmas last year."

Which may account for the extraordinary interest the Twins have taken
in their father's paper cutter ever since.

V

THE STORY OF JANG

"Did you ever own a dog, Baron Munchausen?" asked the reporter of the
_Gehenna Gazette_, calling to interview the eminent nobleman during
Dog Show Week in Cimmeria.

"Yes, indeed I have," said the Baron, "I fancy I must have owned as
many as a hundred dogs in my life. To be sure some of the dogs were
iron and brass, but I was just as fond of them as if they had been
made of plush or lamb's wool. They were so quiet, those iron dogs
were; and the brass dogs never barked or snapped at any one."

"I never saw a brass dog," said the reporter. "What good are they?"

"Oh they are likely to be very useful in winter," the Baron replied.
"My brass dogs used to guard my fire-place and keep the blazi