there was Keedah's father himself swimming along. "I saw what you did
to Umboo," went on the old gentleman elephant, "and Mrs. Stumptail did
just right to tap you with her trunk. Now be a good boy, and don't
shower any more water on the baby elephants."

So Keedah promised that he wouldn't, and Umboo clung as tightly as he
could, with his sprawly legs, to his mother's broad back as she swam
across the river.

The water was wide, at this part of the jungle, but elephants are good
swimmers. They can go in very deep water, and as long as they can keep
the tip end of their trunk out, so they can breathe, the rest of their
body can sink away down below the surface. And when the elephants are
in the water the flies, mosquitoes and other biting bugs of the jungle
can not harm them.

For, though the skin of elephants, rhinoceros beasts, and even the
hippopotami, is very thick, some bugs can bite through it enough to
give pain, and the animals don't like that. But in the water nothing
can bite them, unless it's a crocodile, and none of those big fellows
would come near a whole herd of elephants.

"What are we going to do when we get on the other side of the river?"
asked Umboo of his mother, as he reached his trunk down in the water
and took a little drink.

"Oh, we will rest a while, eat something, perhaps, and then we will
keep on marching to a better part of the jungle," she answered.

"I know what I'm going to do when I get on the other shore," spoke