fear that some of our men might steal these beautiful weapons, we will
ourselves guard them for you carefully from theft until morning."

So saying, we deposited them inside the tent. Then we knew we had our
Masai safe. They would never dream of leaving while the most cherished
of their possessions were in hostage.




XLII.

SCOUTING IN THE ELEPHANT FOREST.


Here we were finally off at dawn. It was a very chilly, wet dawn, with
the fog so thick that we could see not over ten feet ahead. We had four
porters, carrying about twenty-five pounds apiece of the bare
necessities, Kongoni, and Leyeye. The Masai struck confidently enough
through the mist. We crossed neck-deep grass flats--where we were
thoroughly soaked--climbed hills through a forest, skirted apparently
for miles an immense reed swamp. As usual when travelling strange
country in a fog, we experienced that queer feeling of remaining in the
same spot while fragments of near-by things are slowly paraded by. When
at length the sun's power cleared the mists, we found ourselves in the
middle of a forest country of high hills.

Into this forest we now plunged, threading our way here and there where
the animal trails would take us, looking always for fresh elephant
spoor. It would have been quite impossible to have moved about in any