hen he found he could not do this,
he trumpeted and pawed the earth, throwing great clods of dirt all
over them.

"Come out of there! Come out of there!" called Daisy to the kids. "He
will kill you!"

But the Twins could not get out as the elephant was between them and
the hole through which they had crawled. Seeing them, he charged but
he was so big and they so small that they simply ran between his legs
when he tried to catch them up with his trunk.

Daisy, Nannie and Billy Junior all stood panic-stricken at the chances
the kids took. First they would run under his body from side to side,
then between his hind legs. Had he moved a foot, they would have been
crushed between his great legs. There being two of them and both so
small and frisky, they confused the beast so he did not think as
quickly as usual. He had been out of the jungle for years where he had
had to think fast, and now he found himself rusty and unable to cope
with frisky little pests like these two kids.

"I'll fix them," he said to himself, and he walked over to where his
tub of drinking water stood, and filled his trunk. Then he charged
down on the Twins where they stood in one corner, waiting to see what
he would do next. The little rascals were enjoying the rage of the
elephant very much and were not afraid of him at all as they thought
they could trust to their wits to save themselves.

The elephant walked up to within five feet of them. Then he stopped
and squirted the water at them with such force that it knocked one of
them over when it hit him broadside. The other kid it blinded so he
could not see where to run. Then they heard a bellow of rage and pain.
Shaking the water from their eyes, they saw a big white goat run under
the elephant's stomach and scratch the skin with his short horns so
badly that it made the monster cry out with pain and turn to see what
had attacked him so suddenly. When he faced about whom should he see
but old Billy Whiskers himself in front of him. At the same moment he
felt a cat on his back and a dog snapping at his heels.

But what had changed the enraged elephant so quickly? For now he was
as docile as a lamb, and the kids saw him go up to Billy and wind his
trunk around Billy's beard and playfully pull it, at the same time
saying,

"Billy Whiskers! My old friend Billy Whiskers of the circus! Where by
all that is wonderful did you come from? I supposed you were dead long
ago."

Elephants live to be over