to take sides.
When does that happen? I shall tell you.

_When it is Impossible to Remain Neutral_

When two herds are fighting, they may get very reckless. When men make
war, they knock down houses with their guns, and trample on growing
corn. In the same manner, when two herds of elephants fight they knock
down trees, and trample on shrubs and bushes--sometimes the very trees
and shrubs and bushes for which they are fighting! _There never is a
fight of any kind without a lot of damage being done._

So it may happen that one of the fighting herds gets so reckless that it
comes into the ground of the herd that has kept neutral, and does a lot
of damage there. Then what must the president of the neutral herd do? He
must defend his own ground from damage.

So long as the fighting herds kept to their grounds, he must not
interfere. But when one of the fighting herds comes into _his_ ground
and does damage, he must defend his rights. A wise elephant leader
always does that; for he has bull elephants of his own who can drive out
the intruders.

CHAPTER III

The Policemen of the Elephant Herd

I have already told you that the president of an elephant herd must keep
order within his own herd; that is, he must not allow a naughty elephant
to commit a crime, such as to attack any other member of the herd. And
if a naughty elephant does commit a crime, it is the duty of the
president to punish him.

I shall now tell you how he does these things. _There is a wonderful
police system in an elephant herd._

You will understand that better if I tell you first about an old police
system among men. You will read in history books about the Anglo-Saxons,
who were the forefathers of most of the people of England and of the
United States of to-day. These Anglo-Saxons had a police system like
this:--

In a village or in a town all the grown-up men were divided into groups
of ten men; and if any man tried to commit a crime, all the other nine
men of his group tried to prevent him. If he committed the crime
_before_ the other nine men could prevent him, they at least arrested
him. Then they took him before the judge for punishment.

It is something like that in an elephant herd in the jungle; only, as
there are not so many bull elephants in a herd as there are men in a
village, it is not necessary to divide the bulls into different groups.

As there are only twenty or thirty grown-up bulls in an average elephant
herd