Forcing our way through vegetation that crowded around a spur of
volcanic rock, it soon became evident that the whole of the huge herd
was breakfasting not far in front of us, tearing off limbs of trees,
and crashing about as if noise were the only object. We climbed and
attempted to look down on them, only to discover that the part of the
forest where we were consisted of a narrow belt, with a mile-wide open
space beyond it between us and the elephants. The wind was from them
toward us, but that did not wholly account for the amount of noise that
reached us. It was the fact that the herd was twice as big as we
imagined. There were elephants in every direction. We could see and
hear branches breaking with reports like cannon-fire.

Kazimoto was as steady as an old soldier, a great grin spreading across
his ugly honest face, and his eyes alight with enthusiasm. This was
the profession he had followed when he was Courtney's gun-bearer, and
he kept close to Fred with a handful of cartridges ready to pass to
him, whispering wise counsel.

"Get close to them, bwana! Go close! Go close! Wind coming our
way--smell coming our way--noise coming our way--elephant very busy
eating--no hurry! No long shooting! Go right up close!"

It was easier said than done. The elephants had spread broadcast
through the forest, and there was no longer one well-defined swath to
follow, but a very great number of twisting narrow alleys through
elastic undergrowth between great unyielding trees. We had to
separate, to gain any advantage from our number, so that we emerged
into the open more than a hundred yards apart, with Fred at the far
left and Will in the center. Fred, with Kazimoto close at his heels,
was more than fifty yards in front of either of us.

And crossing that mile of open land was no simple business. It was a
mass of rocks and tree-roots, burned over in some swift-running forest
fire and not yet reseeded, nor yet rotted down. There were winding
ways all across it by the dozen that the elephants, with their greater
height and better woodcraft, could follow on the run, but great stumps
and rocks higher than a man's head (that from a distance had looked
like level land) blocked all vision and made progress mostly guesswork.

However, the latter half-mile was more like level going--I emerged from
between two boulders, wondering whether I could ever find my way back
again, and envied Fred, who had found a better t