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Updated: May 20, 2025
"After that it was easy." "Well, you are getting to be like us bigger boys," said Keedah. "May I have some of the palm nuts, Umboo?" "Yes," was the answer, for Umboo felt a little proud at what he had done, and, like a real person, he wanted others to know it. "Did you ever knock down a palm tree?" asked Umboo of Keedah. "Often," was the answer. "I learned to dig at the roots just as you did.
"I am going to run away," said the elephant boy, whom Umboo had once, in fun, knocked into the river. "I am going to run away, and go out in the jungle." "Oh, no. I wouldn't do that if I were you," quietly said one of the tame elephants, coming up behind Keedah just then, and the half-wild elephant was so surprised that he nearly dropped a wisp of hay he was eating.
And he was kept chained up for a week, and given only water and not much food. This was to tame him down, and make him learn that it did not pay to run off when he was taken to the teakwood forest. "I wish I had done as you did, and stayed," said Keedah sorrowfully to Umboo. "I am not going to run away any more."
"Ah ha!" laughed Umboo. "That's the way to do it! Keedah was right! It is very easy to knock over a tree when the ground is soft and muddy. Now for some good nuts to eat." With his trunk Umboo pulled the palm nuts off the tree and stuffed them into his mouth. An elephant's trunk is to him what your hands are to you children. "I'll take this back to the herd with me," he thought.
Into it they rushed, the noise behind them sounding louder and louder now, with more guns shooting and more clappers clapping. Into the quiet of the stockade rushed Tusker, Mr. and Mrs. Stumptail, Umboo, Keedah and all the others.
"I am going to see if I can do as Keedah said he could do, and knock over a tree without digging at the roots," answered the elephant boy. "The ground is rain-soaked now, and soft." "Very well," spoke his mother. "You may try it. But don't go too far away. The herd may move on through the jungle, and then you would be lost." "I'll be careful," promised Umboo.
With him, however, were many of the wild elephants he had known when the herd was in the jungle. Keedah was one of these elephants. "I don't like it here at all!" snarled Keedah, when he had been led up beside Umboo, a few days after they had all been caught in the trap. "I don't like it, and I'm not going to stay!" "What are you going to do?" asked Umboo.
It will be fun!" laughed Umboo. For he knew that it would not hurt Keedah to splash into the water, and the elephant boys and girls used often to play that trick on one another, just as you children, perhaps, do at the seashore. So up to the elephant boy, who was scraping his toe nails on a stone, slyly went Umboo and Batu. And Batu said: "Ah, Keedah! Do your toes hurt you very much?"
And so, watching his chance, when the Indian men were not looking, Keedah sneaked off into the dark part of the woods. In a little while he was missed, and the keepers, with shouts, started after him. They tied Umboo to a tree with chains, leaving him there while they went to hunt Keedah. "They need not have chained me," thought Umboo. "I would not run away.
"What are you doing?" asked Keedah. "I am smelling for sweet roots," was the answer. "My mother showed me how to do it. Do you want me to show you?" "I learned that long ago," said Keedah. "Why I can even get palm nuts off a high tree by knocking the tree down. Can you do that? Smelling out earth-roots is nothing!" "I think it is something," spoke Umboo.
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