"Well, if we can't get out, what are we going to do?" asked Umboo of
his mother.

"We shall have to stay here until the hunter-men come, I suppose,"
answered Mrs. Stumptail.

"Will they shoot us?" asked Umboo.

"I hope not," his mother said.

But Umboo need not have been afraid of that. Elephants in India are
worth too much to shoot. They can be sold to circuses and park
menageries.

But, better than this, the elephants in India do much work. They pull
great wagons, that many horses could not move, and they work in lumber
yards, piling up the big, heavy logs of teakwood, from which those
queer, Chinese carved tables and chairs are made, and which wood is
also used in ships. The Indians teach the elephants how to pile up big
logs very carefully, and so straight that a big pile may be made
without one falling off. Besides this the rich men of India, the
Princes, own many elephants, which they ride on in little houses,
called howdahs which are strapped to the backs of the big animals.

But before the wild elephants can be used thus they must go to school,
to learn to be gentle, and to do as their drivers, or mahouts, tell
them to do. And so Umboo went to school and I shall tell you about
that.

Of course it was not such a school as you boys go to, and the big