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Updated: July 15, 2025
"Well, all right, I will," said the big elephant, as he swung to and fro; because elephants are very seldom still, but always moving as they stand. And they sleep standing up did you know that? "I'll tell you a story about my jungle," went on Umboo. "But perhaps you will not like it as well as you did the story Snarlie the tiger told you."
Then the snake glided away through the jungle, and, watching the end of her tail vanish under a bush, Umboo started off by himself. He had not heard the sounds spoken of by the serpent, but he knew the noises were such as a herd of elephants would make. "She must have good ears, to hear what she heard," thought the elephant boy. "And yet her ears were not as large as mine."
People hardly ever ride on an African elephant's back." "Well, let us hear more of Umboo's story," suggested Humpo, the camel. "It seems to me everyone is talking but him." "That's so," spoke Horni, the rhinoceros. "Please go on, Umboo. Tell us about how you were lost in the jungle."
"What trick are you up to now?" "Well, this elephant laughed at your tail," said Umboo. "He said it was a little short one, and not long like his mother's!" "Don't mind that!" said Mrs. Stumptail, with a sort of laugh away down in her trunk. "All our family have short, or stumpy tails. That is how we get our name. The Stumptail elephants are very stylish, let me tell you."
He wanted to be like Tusker, the leader of the herd, and he thought if he were as tall, and strong as that mighty fellow he would have no trouble at all in uprooting the tree. "There must be some way of doing it," said Umboo to himself as he looked up at the palm nuts on top of the tree, and then he glanced at his mother who was watching him. Of course Mrs.
"Well," said Umboo, "I'll tell you of a terrible fright we had, and how " But just then something else happened. Into the tent came running one of the circus men, and he cried to another, who was asleep on some hay near the elephants. "Come! Loosen Umboo! We need him to help us get one of the wagons out of the mud! Bring Umboo, the strongest of all elephants!"
"Tell us about that!" begged Chako. "All in good time! All in good time," said the big elephant, in a sort of drowsy voice, for he had hardly slept through all his nap that day, before the circus crowds came in. "I have yet to tell you how I was lost, and how I got back to the rest of the herd. But seeing the children remind me of the days in India," added Umboo.
"Oh, now we can't hear any more of the story," said Chako, the big monkey, to Gink the little, long-tailed chap. "Why can't we?" Gink wanted to know. "Because the circus is going to move on. Our cage will be put on the steam cars, and away we will go, and Umboo, and the rest of the elephants, will be put in big box-cars."
"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?"
Tusker stood on top of a little hill, his trunk high in the air, making all sorts of queer, trumpeting noises. "We were waiting for you," said Mr. Stumptail to Umboo's mother. "We are going to run away and hide. Tusker is calling you." "Well, tell him we are here now," said Mrs. Stumptail. "I had to give Umboo his lesson."
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