“This was a piece of huge good luck. Kermit put his first barrel into the second bull and I my second barrel into one of the others, after which it became impossible to say which bullet struck which animal, as the firing became general. They ran a quarter of a mile into the open, and then the big bull I had first shot, and which had no other bullet in him, dropped dead, while the other three, all of which were wounded halted beside him. “One bull dropped to the shot as if poleaxed, falling straight on his back with his legs kicking, but in a moment he was up again and after the others. Later I found that the bullet, a full metal patch, had struck him in the head, but did not penetrate the brain, and merely stunned him for a moment. “All the time we kept running diagonally to their line of flight. They were all three badly wounded, and when they reached the tall, rank grass, high as a man’s head, which fringed the papyrus swamp, the two foremost lay down, while the hindmost turned, and, with nose outstretched, began to come toward us. He was badly crippled, however, and with a soft-nosed bullet from my heavy Holland I knocked him down, this time for good. The other two rose and though each was again hit they reached the swamp, one of them to our right, the other to the left, where the papyrus came out in a point.” Roosevelt the hunter had faced many dangerous situations in his adventures in the wilds, but his first encounter with an elephant brought him closer to death than he had ever been. It was his comrade, F. C. Selous, an able and experienced African hunter, who saved the American on this occasion. A shot from Roosevelt’s party had badly wounded a great lion. It had finally taken refuge in a dense thicket. Selous advised the party that it would be dangerous to come to close quarters with it. Roosevelt excited by the chase, plunged into the thicket in pursuit of the beast. The party had seen no elephants and were unaware that any were in their vicinity. Selous, who, with Kermit, had followed Roosevelt, saw the Colonel lift his gun hurriedly to his shoulder. He glanced in the same direction and caught sight of a herd of elephants led by an enormous tusker. This animal was less than two hundred feet away. Selous shouted: “For the life of you, don’t shoot! A bullet will bring a charge of the herd and we may be trampled to death. Follow me!” Roosevelt reluctantly lowered his rifle. Selous led the Colonel and Kermit to a safe spot and bade them climb a tree. From this position Selous showed his companions how to aim. Roosevelt raised his Winchester and sent a half-dozen bullets into the leader of the herd. With a scream of pain, the elephant charged, but when close to the tree he fell with a tremendous crash. He had received his death wound. The rest of the herd fled, pursued by Kermit’s bullets.