to stiffen into reality.

Day followed day, and Schillingschen, squandering cartridges not far
away behind us, always had more of them. He seemed, too, to lose
interest in keeping so extremely close to us, as we raced to get away
from him toward the mountain. If he was really crazy, as his trembling
boys maintained, then for a crazy man blazing at everything or nothing
he was shooting remarkably little. On the contrary, if he was sane,
and shooting for the pot, he must have acquired a big following in some
mysterious manner, or else have lost his marksmanship when Coutlass
bruised his eyes. He fired each day, judging by the echo of the shots,
about as many cartridges as we did, who had to feed a fairly long
column of men, and make presents of meat, in addition, to the chiefs of
villages. It began to be a mystery how he carried so much ammunition,
unless he had donkeys or porters.

Soon we began to pass through a country where elephants bad been.
There was ruin a hundred yards wide, where a herd of more than a
thousand of them must have swept in panic for fifteen miles. There
were villages with roofs not yet re-thatched, whose inhabitants came
and begged us to take vengeance on the monsters, showing us their
trampled enclosures, torn-down huts, and ruined plantations. They
offered to do whatever we told them in the way of taking part, and
several times we marshaled the men of two or three villages together in
an effort to get a line to windward and drive the herd our way.

But each time, as the plan approached development, ringing shots from
behind us put the brutes to flight. It became uncanny--as if
Schillingschen in his new mad mood was able to divine exactly when his
noise would work most harm. Our fool boys told the local natives that
a madman was on our heels, and after that all offers of help ceased,
even from those who had suffered most from the elephants. We began to
be regarded as mad ourselves. Efforts to get natives to go scouting to
watch Schillingschen, and report to us, were met with point-blank
refusal. Rumor began to precede us, and from one village that had
suffered more than usually badly from passing elephants the inhabitants
all fled at the first sign of Brown, leading our long single column.

We followed the herd. Its track was wide, and easier than the winding
native foot-paths; and we were willing enough to jettison loads of
trade-goods if only we could replace them with tusks. Th