"There is danger, O Elephants!" cried Tusker. "The man-smell is all around us, and the terrible noises are behind, and on both sides of us. There is only one place that is quiet, and that is straight ahead.
We must go that way! Forward!"
And straight ahead rushed the elephants, toward the place where there was no noise. As they went on Mr. Stumptail looked to either side and saw where the two lines of fence came together into a place like a big ring, and the ring also had a fence around it.
"Look, Tusker!" cried Umboo"s father. "Is it all right to go there where the fence is?"
"It is the only place to go to get away from the hunters," said Tusker. "They are behind us and on both sides. Only ahead of us is there none. We must go that way!"
And this is just what the hunters wanted. They made no noise in front of the elephants on purpose so they would rush that way. For, in that direction, was the strongly fenced-in stockade, or trap, with long barriers on each side leading to it.
To the elephants, who were frightened by the shooting and clapping noises behind, and on both sides of them, the silence in front of them seemed just what they wanted. Toward it they ran, not knowing that the trap was waiting for them.
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.
And then, when they were safely in the trap, a great big door of logs, as strong as the fence of trees of which the stockade was built, fell with a bang behind them, shutting the elephants in. Then the shooting and clapping stopped.
For a moment it was quiet in the jungle, the only sound being the wind blowing in the trees, or the rubbing of the rough-skinned elephants"
bodies, one against the other, making a queer, shuffling noise. The big animals crowded together in the middle of the stockade trap, and waited for what would happen next.
"Is this the salt spring, Mother?" asked Umboo.
"No," she sadly answered. "It is not. 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. "All the strong elephants will try to break out. Perhaps it will be all right yet. Listen, Tusker is going to speak."
Tusker, the big bull, raised his trunk and said:
"O, Elephants! I am sorry, but I seem to have led you into a trap. I did not know it was here. I tried to lead you away from the man-smell and away from the danger, but I have led you into worse. Now I will try to get you out. I see what has happened. The hunters made their fences in the jungle so we could only come this way--this way into the trap. But we shall break out!
"Come over here by me, Mr. Stumptail, and you too, Mr. One Tusk, and you also, b.u.mper Head. Come, we will rush at the fence of this trap and batter it down. In that way we can get out. We shall fool these hunters yet. Come, we will batter down the fence and once more we will be in our jungle!"
"Yes, we will knock down the fence!" cried the other big elephants through their trunks. And they made such a rumble, and struck the ground so heavily with their great feet, that the earth trembled.
CHAPTER XI
UMBOO GOES TO SCHOOL
"What is going to happen now?" asked Umboo the big elephant boy of his mother, as the great creatures stood huddled together in the middle of the stockade, or trap. "What is going to happen now?"
"Wait and see," advised Mrs. Stumptail, and she was much worried.
I have called Umboo a "big" elephant boy, for he was small no longer.
He had grown fast since I began telling you about him as a baby drinking milk, and now, though of course he was not as large as his mother or father, nor as strong as Tusker, I must not call him "little" any more.
"Come, Elephant brothers!" cried Tusker. "We will break down the trap fence, and then we shall be free to go out into our jungle again."
But it was not so easy to do this as it was to say it. The men who had built the fences and trap well know that the elephants would try to get out, and the stockade had been made very strong.
Besides this there had been dug, inside the trap, and close to where the heavy tree-stakes had been driven into the ground, a ditch, or trench. There was no water in this ditch but on account of the trench the elephants could not get near enough the inside of the fence to strike it with their heads. If they had done so they would have gotten their front feet into the dug-out place, and, perhaps, would have fallen over and hurt themselves.
So when Tusker and the others hoped to knock the fence down by hitting, or b.u.t.ting, it with their heads, they found they could not, as the ditch stopped them. They could only just reach the fence by stretching out their trunks; they could not bang it with their big heads as they wanted to.
"Can"t we ever get out of the trap?" asked Umboo of his mother when Tusker and the others had found they could not knock down the stockade fence. "Can"t we ever get out?"
"And did you ever get out?" eagerly asked Snarlie, the tiger, who, with the other circus animals, listened to Umboo"s story. "Did you ever get out of the trap, Umboo?"
"Tell us about that part!" begged Woo-Uff, the lion. "Once I was caught in a trap, but it was made of a net, with ropes of bark. It was then that Gur, the kind boy, gave me a drink of water."
"And I was in a trap also," spoke Snarlie, the striped tiger. "I fell into a deep pit. It was almost like your trap, Umboo, except that the sides were of dirt, and the pit was very deep. I could not jump out.
But after a while I did not mind being caught, for I was taken care of by Princess Toto."
"Let us hear how Umboo got out of the trap," said Chako, the monkey.
"How do you know he got out?" asked Humpo, the camel.
"Isn"t he here with us now?" asked Chako, who was a very smart monkey.
"And if he hadn"t got out of the trap he wouldn"t be here. Anybody knows that!"
"Oh, yes; that"s so," said Humpo, who did not think much, being quite content to eat hay, and let others do most of the talking. "But, all the same," went on the humpy creature, "I should like to hear how Umboo did get out of the trap."
"I"ll tell you," said the elephant boy, and he went on with his story.
When the big elephants found, because of the ditch, that they could not get near enough the stockade fence to knock it down with their big heads, they became very wild. They raised their trunks and made loud trumpet sounds through them. They beat the earth with their feet until the ground trembled, and some of them rushed at the gate, which had fallen shut behind them, as they hurried into the trap to get away from the noise.
But the gate, which had no ditch in front of it, was the strongest part of the trap, and the elephants could not batter it down, try as they did. Tusker and the others banged into it, but the gate held firmly.
"Well, if we can"t get out, what are we going to do?" asked Umboo of his mother.
"We shall have to stay here until the hunter-men come, I suppose,"
answered Mrs. Stumptail.
"Will they shoot us?" asked Umboo.
"I hope not," his mother said.
But Umboo need not have been afraid of that. Elephants in India are worth too much to shoot. They can be sold to circuses and park menageries.