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ELEPHANT SHOOTING
245

for if one has been shot all the herds in the district hear about it, and in a day or two there is not an elephant to be found anywhere. When the sun is hot they will shelter during the day in dense jungles of 'wait-a-bit' thorns, only coming out every third or fourth day to drink and wash in some pool or river, very often thirty or


OSWELL'S NARROW ESCAPE


forty miles away. This done they go back to a sheltered place and lie comfortably down to sleep, with their backs to an ant-hill, which shows an odd taste in beds.

Well, early one morning Colonel Gordon Cumming left the hole in which he had been sleeping, and climbed up a high rock to see if there was any chance of an elephant. Yes, sure enough, there were nine or ten huge creatures