Read 07 Elephant Adventure for Free Online Page A

little fellow spinning through the air above the backs of other elephants to fall at last between two of the huge beasts, where he was squeezed so badly that he lost consciousness. Before he could be trampled upon, other pygmies seized him and carried him to a safe place where a witch doctor was treating those already hurt in the fight
    An elephant can tighten the muscles in his trunk to make it as stiff and hard as a wooden beam. Then he can bring it down on a man or animal with killing force.
    A pygmy twice jumped out of the way of a descending trunk. As it was about to come down the third time he saw an ant-bear hole and hopped into it.
    He dropped down out of sight and the trunk struck the ground with a terrific blow above his head.
    The beast tried to dig but his enemy with his tusks but they failed to reach him. Then he tried his trunk. This was a good eight feet long and circled the neck of the little black. The elephant pulled. There was every chance that he would succeed in hauling the pygmy from the hole and at the same time strangle him with that terrific grip around his throat
    But the pygmy drew his knife and jabbed the point of It into the tip of the trunk.
    There are two places where the elephant is very sensitive. One is the sole of his foot, the other is the tip of his trunk.
    Snake-bite in either of these two places can kill him. In either place, the prick of a thorn will make him bellow with pain.
    Jabbed by the pygmy’s knife, the elephant jerked his trunk from the hole and put the tip in his mouth, exactly as a child may do if he hurts his thumb.
    But the elephant was not done. More angry that ever, he furiously stamped the ground around the opening into the hole, plugging it tight and buried his enemy alive.
    The pygmy was not worried. He knew his friends would get him out.
    What he didn’t know was that he was not alone in the hole. The ant-bear who had made it was not at home. But holes made by ant-bears are often used by other creatures - foxes, jackals, honey badgers, snakes, wild-cats, and wart-hogs.
    This one happened to be the temporary residence of a porcupine. He was a big fellow and not too good-tempered. He objected to sharing his quarters with a rude stranger who barged in without saying, ‘If you please.’
    No porcupine can throw his quills. And he cannot puncture you if he comes head on, because all bis quills point backward, not forward. But look out if he starts to back up.
    This porcupine showed bis displeasure at being disturbed by backing up against a portion of the stranger that was as sensitive as the tip of an elephant’s trunk. The pygmy howled as several dozen needle-sharp quills punctured his behind.
    He began clawing furiously at the earth above him. His friends were already digging for him, and in a few minutes they hauled him out - but what they saw made them rock with laughter.
    The pygmy’s round rear was just one big pin-cushion stuck with black-and-white pins six inches long.
    Still howling, he ran to the first-aid station, where he hollered even louder as the witch doctor pulled out the painful barbs, one by one. Then the pygmy doctor plastered the little fellow’s stern with mud and covered it with bark which he tied in place with vines.
    In five minutes the pygmy had forgotten his experience and was back in the fight.
    The beast the pygmies had selected was a huge female.
    ‘We’ll never get it,’ Roger said. ‘Why, it’s bigger than the one yesterday. And we thought that was a giant’
    ‘Biggest thing I’ve ever seen on four legs,’ Hal agreed. ‘It’s as tall as a tall man standing on the head of a tall man. And I bet it weighs a good twelve tons.’
    Roger shook his head. ‘I can’t believe it. Nothing that walks on land could be that big.’
    ‘Oh, couldn’t it? So you’ve forgotten what you saw at Washington - in the museum. That was even bigger.’
    Roger remembered. ‘You win,’ he said. ‘But I’ll bet you won’t win this