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"What are you doing that for?" "Oh, just to have some fun," answered Umboo and Batu, laughing as they ran off. "Well, I'll show you some more fun!" cried Keedah, as he scrambled up the river bank, and ran after the other two elephant boys, his trunk raised high in the air. Umboo and Batu ran as fast as they could, of course, and Keedah raced after them.
In the forest were great trees of teakwood and these the elephant workers had to drag out so they could be loaded upon carts, with great wooden wheels, and brought to the river. One day Umboo and Keedah were taken together to the teak forest. "Now is our chance, Umboo," said the other elephant after a while as they went farther and farther into the woods. "Now is our chance!"
"Because Tusker smelled danger," answered Keedah, who was with the other small elephants where they were gathered together, the older ones about them. "He smelled white and black hunters, with guns, and they are coming to shoot us, Tusker says. So he called a warning to all of us." "I heard it away off where I was digging up roots," said Umboo. "But did Tusker see the hunters with their guns?"
"I'll put some more water on you!" "No you don't! Now you swim along!" suddenly cried Mrs. Stumptail. "Get away!" With that she tapped Keedah on his head with her trunk two or three times, and, when an elephant wants to, it can strike very hard with its long nose, even though it seems soft. "Ouch! Ouch!" trumpeted Keedah as he swam out of reach of Mrs. Stumptail. "Ouch! Let me alone!"
As Umboo and his mother were eating the palm nuts, along came Keedah. "Hello!" cried the other elephant boy. "How did you get the palm tree down, Mrs. Stumptail?" "I did it," said Umboo. "You?" cried Keedah. "No! You are not strong enough for that!" "No, I wasn't strong enough to knock this tree over with my head, or pull it down with my trunk, until I loosened the dirt at the roots," said Umboo.
Don't slide down any hills unless you ask me first." "I won't," promised the baby elephant. "But tell me more about it, Keedah. Did you ever slide down hill?" "Many a time. I was with the herd last year when we swam this same river. I could swim then, too, and when we came to the hill I climbed up. Then I came down lots faster than I walked up, and I went splash into the river.
Some rested in the shade of trees, pulling off the low branches and the palm nuts. Others rolled in the mud, to make a sort of coating over their skins, to keep off the flies. Others went to the top of the hill to slide down, and Keedah went with them. "Oh, mother! I wish I could slide!" said Umboo, when he saw what fun the other elephants were having.
"What for?" asked Keedah, who was now more friendly with Umboo. "Why did the hunters kill the elephants, Bango?" "To get their big teeth, or tusks. Our tusks are ivory, you know, and the hunter men, so I have been told, take our teeth to make into round balls, with which they play games, or they use them to put on machines that make tinkle-tinkle sounds."
Some of them still tore around, trumpeting, but the big tame elephants pulled them with ropes to the trees where they were made fast. Mrs. Stumptail, and the other mother elephants, soon calmed down, and the boys and girls, like Umboo and Keedah, did as their mothers did. In a short time the wild elephants were all either tied fast to trees, or were led away between two of the tame ones.
"And don't forget about sliding down hill," added Woo-Uff, the lion. "Did your mother let you?" "Oh, yes, she let me," answered Umboo. "At first she did not want to, for a lot of the big elephants were having this fun. But, after a while, when they went away from the hill, having slid down enough, and when Keedah, and some of the other elephant boys and girls, took their turn, I went with them.
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