e chase led up
toward Elgon, over the shoulder of an outlying spur, and upward toward
the mountain's eastern slopes.

As long as we kept in the wake of the herd the going presented no
difficulties. We knew by the state of the tracks and the dung that the
herd was never far ahead. Frequently we heard them crashing through
trees in front of us. Yet whenever we came so close as to hope for a
view, and a shot at a tusker, invariably a regular fusillade from the
eastward to our rear would start the herd stampeding with a din like
all the avalanches.

Streams by the dozen flowed down from the mountain's sides, their banks
crushed into bog where the elephants had crossed. Our donkeys grew
used to being tied by the head in line and hauled across (for in common
with all herds of donkeys, there were a few of them that swam readily,
and many that either could not or refused). The flies in the wake of
the elephants were worse than the tetse that haunted the shore of
Nyanza.

We had no trouble now from our boys. We could even let the Baganda's
hands loose. They feared the cannibals of the higher slopes, but were
much more afraid of the madman to our right rear. Our difficulty lay
in compelling them to keep a course sufficiently to eastward, and in
calling a halt each day before men and animals were too utterly tired
out. Yet for all their hurry, we did not gain on the man who made them
so afraid.

Elephants, once thoroughly scared, will run away forever. Our boys
openly praised the herd in front for its speed and stamina, hoping it
would continue on its course and oblige us to keep the madman with the
rifle at a safe distance to our rear. But it seemed he had an easier
line than we, or else his frenzy gave him seven-league boots, for he
even began to gain on us, keeping along our right flank at a distance
of several miles, and driving us nearly mad in the frantic effort to
keep our column from turning and running away to the westward. If we
had relaxed our vigilance for a moment they would have broken line and
fled.

It was old volcanic country we were marching through, densely wooded,
virgin forest for the most part, with earth so warm at times that it
was not easy to believe the crater of Elgon quite extinct. Even at
that low level we came on blow-holes nearly filled in with dirt and
trash, serving as fine caves for beasts of prey. We went into one for
about three hundred paces before it narrowed into nothing,