ing of all, he
said, was the hyena incident. He told us the story, and it is surely one
that will make all nature fakers sit up in an incredulous and dissenting
mood.

During the night, the story goes, many hyenas had come from far and near
to gorge on the carcasses of the elephants. Their howls filled the night
with weird sounds. Lions also journeyed to the feast, and between the
two they mumbled the bones of the slain with many a howl and snarl.
Early in the morning the colonel went out in the hope of surprising a
lion at the spread. Instead, to his great amazement, he saw the head of
a hyena protruding from the distended side of the largest elephant. It
was inside the elephant and was looking out, as through a window. A
single shot finished the hyena, after which a more careful examination
was made.

There are two theories as to what really happened. One is that the hyena
ate its way into the inside of the elephant, then gorged itself so that
its stomach was distended to such proportions that it couldn't get
through the hole by which it had entered the carcass.

[Drawing: _The Hyena Episode_]

The other theory is that, after eating its way into the elephant, it
started to eat its way out by a different route. When its head emerged
the heavy muscles of the elephant's side inclosed about its neck like a
vise, entrapping the hyena as effectively as though it had its head in a
steel trap. In the animal's despairing efforts to escape it had kicked
one leg out through the thick walls of the elephant's side.

[Photograph: Kermit Roosevelt]

[Photograph: "Peeling" an elephant]

The colonel, in parting, asked us to stop with him for lunch on our way
back and he would tell us all about the elephant hunt and show us his
pigskin library. In return we promised to photograph the hyena and thus
be prepared to render expert testimony in case, some time in the future,
he might get into a controversy with the nature fakers as to the truth
of the incident.

We then resumed our journey and arrived at the elephant camp at
nine-thirty. It was a scene of industry. The skins of the two largest
elephants and that of the calf had been removed the afternoon before and
were spread out under a cluster of trees. Twenty or thirty porters were
squatted around the various ears and strips of hide and massive feet,
paring off all the little particles of flesh or tissue that remained. As
fast as a section of hide was stripped it was thickly c