ts head with his prodigious foot which resembled a log.
Having finished this operation, he again lifted the still quivering
body with his trunk; this time, however, he did not toss it upwards,
but directly into the waterfall. After this, nodding both ways and
fanning himself with his ears, he began to gaze keenly at Nell, and
finally stretched out his trunk towards her as if claiming a reward for
his heroic and, at the same time, sensible deed.

Nell ran at once to the tent and returning with a box full of wild
figs, began to throw a few at a time to him, while he searched for them
in the grass and placed one after another in his mouth. Those which
fell in deeper crevices, he blew out with such force that, with the
figs, stones the size of a man's fist flew up. The children received
this exhibition with applause and laughter. Nell went back several
times for new supplies, not ceasing to contend with each fig that the
elephant was entirely tamed and that they could even at that moment go
down to him.

"You see, Stas; we now shall have a defender. For he is afraid of
nobody in the desert--neither lion, nor snake, nor crocodile. And he is
very good and surely loves us."

"If he is tamed," said Stas, "and if I can leave you under his care,
then really I can go hunting in perfect peace, for a better defender
for you I could not find in all Africa."

After a while he added:

"The elephants of this place are wild, but I have read that Asiatic
elephants, for instance, have a strange weakness for children. It has
never occurred in India that an elephant has harmed a child, and if one
falls in a rage, as sometimes happens, the native keepers send children
to pacify him."

"Ah, you see! You see!"

"In any case you did well in not allowing me to kill him."

At this Nell's pupils flashed with joy like two little greenish flames.
Standing on tiptoe, she placed both her hands on Stas' shoulders and,
tilting her head backward, asked, gazing into his eyes:

"I acted as if I had how many years? Tell me! As if I had how many
years?"

And he replied:

"At least seventy."

"You are always joking."

"Get angry, get angry, but who will free the elephant?"

Hearing this, Nell began at once to fawn like a little kitten.

"You--and I shall love you very much and he will also."

"I am thinking of that," Stas said, "but it will be hard work and I
shall not do it at once, but only when we are ready to start upon a
farther jour