Still we are monarchs of field and stream! 
        None is as strong or as heavy as we! 
We scent—­we swerve—­we come—­we scream—­
        And the men are as mud ’neath tusk and knee! 
But we go no more to the Place to die,
        For the blacks head off and the guns pursue;
Bleaching our scattered rib-bones lie,
        And men be many, and we be few. 
Nevertheless: 

(All together, trunks up-thrown, ears extended, and stamping in slow time with the fore-feet.)

        ’Twas we who lonely echoes woke
        To copy the crash of the trees we broke! 
        Goad, nor whip, nor wheel, nor yoke
        Shall humble the pride of the Ivory Folk!

We had laughed at Fred’s suggestion that Schillingschen might have ammunition cached away.  Fred had sneered at my guess that the German might ride donkey-back and not be so easily left behind.  Now the probability of both suggestions seemed to stiffen into reality.

Day followed day, and Schillingschen, squandering cartridges not far away behind us, always had more of them.  He seemed, too, to lose interest in keeping so extremely close to us, as we raced to get away from him toward the mountain.  If he was really crazy, as his trembling boys maintained, then for a crazy man blazing at everything or nothing he was shooting remarkably little.  On the contrary, if he was sane, and shooting for the pot, be must have acquired a big following in some mysterious manner, or else have lost his marksmanship when Coutlass bruised his eyes.  He fired each day, judging by the echo of the shots, about as many cartridges as we did, who had to feed a fairly long column of men, and make presents of meat, in addition, to the chiefs of villages.  It began to be a mystery how he carried so much ammunition, unless he had donkeys or porters.

Soon we began to pass through a country where elephants bad been.  There was ruin a hundred yards wide, where a herd of more than a thousand of them must have swept in panic for fifteen miles.  There were villages with roofs not yet re-thatched, whose inhabitants came and begged us to take vengeance on the monsters, showing us their trampled enclosures, torn-down huts, and ruined plantations.  They offered to do whatever we told them in the way of taking part, and several times we marshaled the men of two or three villages together in an effort to get a line to windward and drive the herd our way.

But each time, as the plan approached development, ringing shots from behind us put the brutes to flight.  It became uncanny—­as if Schillingschen in his new mad mood was able to divine exactly when his noise would work most harm.  Our fool boys told the local natives that a madman was on our heels, and after that all offers of help ceased, even from those who had suffered most from the elephants.  We began to be regarded as mad ourselves.  Efforts to get natives to go scouting to watch Schillingschen, and report to us, were met with point-blank refusal.  Rumor began to precede us, and from one village that had suffered more than usually badly from passing elephants the inhabitants all fled at the first sign of Brown, leading our long single column.