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Updated: June 26, 2025
This is dreadful!" "What has happened?" asked Umboo. "And why do Tusker and the other big elephants look so scared?" "Because we are caught in a trap," answered the boy elephant's mother. "I have heard tell of these places, but I was never in one before." "Can't we get out?" Umboo wanted to know. "Tusker will try, and so will your father," said Mrs. Stumptail.
They, too, were hungry for salt, and Umboo was quite anxious to taste some, for he had had very little, as yet. But he liked it very much, and was anxious for more. But an hour or so later, when traveling along toward where the salt springs bubbled up in the jungle, Tusker suddenly stopped again. Once more he gave the danger signal through his trunk. "What is the matter now?" asked Mr. Stumptail.
Stumptail," said the kind, old head elephant. "You know the herd will never go faster than the mothers and baby elephants can travel." And this is true, as any old elephant hunter will tell you. "Thank you," said Mr. Stumptail, to Tusker; for elephants are polite to each other, even though, in the jungle, they sometimes may be a bit rough toward lions and tigers, of whom they are afraid.
So Umboo thought, and then he remembered seeing what the other elephants did when they were hungry, and wanted to dig up tree roots. "I guess I'll poke away the dirt with my feet," he said. "Yes, that's a good way to begin," said Mrs. Stumptail. So Umboo, with his big, broad fore feet, loosened the dirt over the tree roots.
All the other elephants gathered around him, and off he started, leading the way through the green forest. "Now if I go too fast for any of you baby elephants, just squeak and I'll stop," said the big, kind elephant. "We will go only as fast as you little chaps can walk." "You are very kind," said Mrs. Stumptail, helping Umboo, with her trunk, to get over a rough bit of ground.
They were not down very deep, being the top roots, and not the big heavy ones, buried far down in the earth. "Ha! Now I can see the roots!" cried the little boy elephant. "They are uncovered, but still I can't lift them up with my trunk, mother. What shall I do next?" "What are your tusks for?" asked Mrs. Stumptail. "Don't be so silly! Pry up the roots with your tusks!"
"It's hard work going up hill," went on the larger elephant boy, "but it's easy coming down. You just sit on your hind legs, hold your trunk up in the air and down you come as fast as anything!" "And be careful you don't bump into anything," said Mrs. Stumptail. "Sliding down hill is all right if you don't bump into anything. You must be careful, Umboo.
"You are going to fall!" and she reached out her trunk and wound it around Umboo, holding him up. "Hello!" trumpeted Mr. Stumptail, coming up just then with a big green branch in his trunk. "What's the matter here?" "Umboo was just showing me how well he could walk," said his mother, speaking elephant talk, of course. "I told him the herd would soon be on the march, and that he must come along."
Indeed there is no path, the elephants making one for themselves, and when once a herd starts off it can hardly ever be caught by a hunter on foot. "Do you think any of us will be shot?" asked Umboo, as he shuffled along beside his mother. "How does it feel to be shot?" "My! But you ask a lot of questions," said Mrs. Stumptail; and I think Umboo was like a lot of boys and girls I know.
"Excuse me for not giving you some of the first ones I dug." "Oh, that's all right," said Mrs. Stumptail. "I wanted you to learn, but you may give me some of the next ones you pry up." Umboo uncovered more roots, and gave his mother some, and then, as he was moving to another part of the jungle, there suddenly sounded through the forest a loud, shrill cry.
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