The St. Mary banner. (Franklin, Parish of St. Mary, La.) 1889-1931, 1910-01-15

| 40 : tcrcaInIy rafIIe2
attempt at getting out OF the way, with
an inevitable loss in the first few yards
| and?
l suppose something Of this sort
flashes through the brain of every
man who is after dangerous game when
he has only the last few vital yards to
| cover. However, | had no mishap, and
on reaching my tracker | saw, almost
straight above me, a huge ear slowly
| Tapping backward and forward-noth-
| ing else. The elephant was standing
stock still, broadside on to me, listen
ing intently. Standing | could not see
| the ear well, SO l tried kneeling, but
| then could barely see it at all; the
| thing for it was to lie down. This way
| | got the best view, which, however,
was still only of the ear. even the vital
| spot being hidden. This did not mat
| ter much, as | knew exactly where it
was and so aimed at the foliage cover
! ing it. fired, and all l knew was that
the ear had disappeared. l could see
nothing and hear nothing. in a few
| seconds, however, one tracker, who
| had been lying alongside NE. jumped
up (the other. by the way, had cleared
up the nearest tree; and small blame
to him, as he had no gum, and creep
| ing forward a pace or two, exclaimed.
"Sudat matt, tuan; sudat mati!' (He
! is dead sir, he is dead")
When the bullet struck him in the
| brain he had slowly sunk down in all
upright position, his weight driving
one tusk into the ground almost up to
the hilt My freed friend now de-
scended, and gave forth the Dyak
| death cry, to let his pals with the i'm
pedimenta know that the elephant was
dead. That cry-only emitted when
some animal has been killed, or, more
often, when somebody has lost his or
her head "a head is head with a
| Dyak, be it male or female)-is hardly
musical, but it is the most weird and
penetrating cry that have ever heard.
| When with me the Dyaks were good
enough not to indulge in any head
hunting, so naturally it was a welcome
sound.
The elephant was an old one, and
had a very curious pair CT tusks. One
was quite normal, but the other curry
ed in toward his chest, until the tip
was not much more than three inches
clear of it. The normal one measured
| four feet and the other five feet. This
measurement was taken along the
curve. AS the tusks were thin they
were by no means heavy. The usual
| process of extracting them is to let
them rot, which takes generally about
| four days; but as l had very little
more time to spend in the country and
was anxious to take them back with
| me, the natives extracted them for
me. By the time we had taken all Of
the animal that was wanted-and when
a Dyak is let loose on carcass he
wants a good DEALT was about 8 p.
m, so l decided to stop for the nigh:
on the Sibugal River.
| While the natives were building the
"sulap' bethought me to try to catch
some fish with hook, piece of
string and a bit of elephant as bait.
While rigging up this tackle the Dy-
| axis put the tusks in the river so as to
let the fish clean off the meat. They
certainly needed no further entice-
1 ment, but fairly jost!ed each other in
! their eagerness. They averaged about
four inches long, and somewhat re-
| sembled the English roach. To this
| ground bait l brought my hook and
string and caught about twenty as fast
as l could haul them out. To show
how eager and simple. minded they
were, when put my hand in the water
one of them promptly bit my finger.
Three days hard walking brought
me back to my ''gobang." On the way
I shot a rhino and also came across
another elephant track, only twenty
four hours old; but the food had so
dwindled that there was barely suffi-
Gent to last me back to my boat, and
in the jungle you cannot play tricks
with your inside without running very
grave risks. Thus l was reluctantly
compelled to go home with only one
pair of tusks and rhino trophy as the
result of an eight days expedition.