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 awhile--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 that they slept standing. Swartboy knew
better than that. He said that they sometimes slept standing, but
oftener lay down, especially in districts where they were not much
hunted. Swartboy considered it a good sign that this one had lain down.
He reasoned from it that the elephants had not been disturbed in that
neighbourhood, and would be the more easily approached and killed. They
would be less likely to make off from that part of the country, until
they--the hunters--had had a "good pull" out of them.

This last consideration was one of great importance. In