Page:Hunting and trapping stories; a book for boys (IA huntingtrappings00pric).pdf/37

HUNTING AND CATCHING WILD ELEPHANTS squealing with fury, charged the party of men. The hunter jumped to one side but his coat caught in some thick brambles. The elephant crashed past him but not quite close enough to do him harm. But the brambles were torn asunder by the elephant's great weight and the hunter was flung a couple of sommersaults, until he came against a tree with such force that it all but knocked his senses out. When he came back to consciousness he found that the elephant had been killed by his headman, but not before it had trampled two of the natives to death and scattered the remainder. The mangled bodies bore terrible evidences of the elephant's fury.



Near the ear or brain pan are about the only places that a bullet will stop a rush. A certain writer tells a story of having seen an elephant killed so suddenly, while running, that it rolled over completely just like a rabbit. Its body came down with a crash that shook the earth and fell against a good sized tree which was snapped off a few feet above the ground as through it had been a sapling.

The way in which elephants are taken alive is truly wonderful. First of all a huge corral, is made and surrounded by a stockade, built of the largest