IN A TRAP


All the other elephants waited while Tusker stood there, swaying to
and fro in the jungle thinking. Some people say animals do not think,
but I believe they do. At least it is thinking to them, though it may
not seem so to us.

"Well, are we going to stay here all day?" asked a young elephant, who
was crowded in among the others at the back of the herd. "I want to
get to some place where I can have palm nuts to eat. I am hungry.
Let's go on!"

"Be quiet!" called Umboo's father to this elephant. "Don't you see
that Tusker is trying to think, and find the best way out of danger
for us. Wait a bit."

So the elephants waited, and finally Tusker with a shake of his big
ears, said:

"I never knew anything like this before. Always when we have come to
the salt springs the way has been clear. There have been no man-made
fences to stop us. But, since they are here it must be that it is not
meant for us to go where the fences are. Very well. I know how to get
to the salt springs without going near these things across our paths.
We can go straight ahead, between the two fences!"

And that was just what the hunters, who had put up the fences in the
jungle wanted. They wanted the elephants to go along between them,