"The herd turned again and went back over the plain, and we were safe for the time. I wanted to follow them up, and so did the captain; but time did not permit, and we returned to the column, which had been resting by the roadside while we were absent on our unsuccessful hunt." Just before dusk, when the caravan halted to go into camp, a solitary elephant was seen leisurely feeding in the grass not more than three hundred yards from the road. Frank wanted to have a shot at him, but his proposal was vetoed by Captain Mohammed as a dangerous performance. "Don't go near him," said the captain; "he is a 'rogue' elephant, and one of the most dangerous of his class." [Illustration: FRANK'S DISCOVERY: A "ROGUE" ELEPHANT.] Frank remembered hearing about rogue elephants in Ceylon and India, and asked if there was any difference between the Asiatic and the African elephant in this particular. "Not much," was the reply; "though, perhaps, the African when he becomes a rogue is a trifle more vicious than his Asiatic brother. He is an elephant that has become separated from his herd and is obliged to roam by himself. No other elephant will associate with him, and he is an outcast, who can never hope for restoration to elephantine society. He is far bolder than any member of a herd, and is always a male, and one of the finest of his kind. Where another elephant would run away he will stand up and fight, and his sagacity is quite equal to his strength and courage." Frank wished to know why the elephant became a rogue, or solitary wanderer, and he also asked from what the designation came. "He is called a 'rogue' in English," was the reply, "because that is the literal translation of his Indian, Cingalese, and African name. He is a rogue because of his viciousness and his destructive ways: he comes into the plantations of the natives and destroys wantonly all that he cannot eat. Ordinary herd elephants will go away when they have satisfied their appetites, but a rogue will break down fruit-trees and trample whole acres of rice or other growing things solely for the pleasure of destroying them. It is a common remark that one rogue will do more damage than a dozen herd elephants. "India is a country, as you know, where caste prevails among the people, and when a man does certain things, many of them trivial in our eyes, he loses his rank, or caste. For some things he may be reinstated on payment of a fine, which is proportioned to the extent of his offence; but for others there is no restoration, and he remains a pariah, or outcast, till his death.