Page:In brightest Africa.djvu/210

 noose is one end of a twisted rawhide cable, the other end of which is fastened to a heavy log. If the trap works, the elephant steps on the "basket" and his leg goes through. The "basket" sticks to his leg and holds the noose until the elephant moves enough to draw it tight. Then he begins to drag the heavy log through the forest. He cannot go far or fast and he leaves an unmistakable trail. He is a high-strung, nervous creature and when after a few days of trekking about with his tormenting log the natives come up with him, he is weak from lack of food and water. There he stands at bay, as I have pictured him in bronze. But his defiance is of slight avail, for there is little to be feared from his charge. It is comparatively simple for his enemies to finish him off with poisoned spears and arrows.

In my bronzes I am telling bit by bit my stories of African animals. A series of three groups telling the story of native lion-spearing will be finished by the time this book is out and will ultimately take its place in Roosevelt African Hall. In 1911 I got together a band of Nandi spearmen on the Uasin Gishu Plateau to hunt lions. I wanted a motion picture of native lion-spearing, the most dramatic thing Africa has to offer. In twenty days the Nandi had speared ten lions and five leopards. My moving pictures were not very satisfactory but I did get two other very diverse results from the trip—the determination to invent a better camera for wild-animal photography, and the idea for these lion-spearing groups.

The first two groups represent three native spear