Meanwhile, the runaway kept things moving.  He knew his keeper and attendants were hot on his trail, and his sudden change of course was undoubtedly with a view of misleading them.  It is hardly to be supposed that he expected to find any “game” in the woods, but nevertheless he did.

It so happened that Jack Norton and Billy Wiggins, a couple of boys not more than fourteen years of age, were engaged on a little hunt that same afternoon.  The teachers had sent such bad reports home about them that their parents inflicted the most awful kind of punishment; they did not permit them to attend the circus, to which they had been looking forward for weeks.  The father of Billy was specially stern, and forbade his hopeful to take his gun, when he joined Jack on a little hunting ramble in the woods.  Mr. Norton felt some slight compunctions, when he noted how patiently his boy accepted his fate, and relented to that degree that he permitted him to take his rifle, though he knew there was little chance of his securing any game.

The boys had walked about a mile, and, coming to a fallen tree, sat down to rest awhile, for the day was warm and the gun which they had taken turns in carrying, was heavy.

“I guess this hunt ain’t agoin’ to amount to much,” sighed Jack, as he leaned the rifle against the prostrate trunk, on which they were seated.

“Why not?” asked Billy.

“‘Cause there ain’t nothin’ to hunt; I heerd Budge Jones say that when he was a boy, these woods used to be full of bears and deers and tigers and lions and giraffes and that sort of thing.”

“Yes, and the folks were so mean they killed ’em all, but I’ve the idea, Jack, that maybe some of the lions or tigers has hid somewhere in the woods and we might find ’em.”

“Golly!  I don’t know whether I’d want to find ’em or not,” replied Jack, looking about him, with a scared expression.

“Why not?  Hain’t you got a gun?”

“Yes, but while I was killin’ one the others might chaw me all to pieces; but if there was only one, I wouldn’t care, if he was an elephant as big as a barn——­”

“My gracious! there he comes!”

A terrific crashing of the undergrowth caused both lads to glance affrightedly behind them, and there, sure enough, was Vladdok, the fearful elephant, almost upon them.  They started to run, their courses so diverging that the beast was forced to select one and let the other alone for the moment.  He fixed upon Billy Wiggins, who had taken barely twenty steps, when the trunk of the beast inclosed his waist and he was lifted, as if he was a feather from the ground, and the next instant he felt himself whizzing through space.

A marvelous providence saved him.  Instead of dashing him against a tree, or upon the ground, the elephant, in one of his mad freaks, flung him from him as though he was a ball.  He spun through the air, the leaves and limbs whizzing against his face and body, and instinctively clutching with both hands, succeeded in grasping enough branches to support the weight of his body and check his descent.