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biggest land animals found the fly-size human too annoying and seemed about ready to do something about it, Hal made a rather hasty retreat to the car.
    Another half-mile and Crosby again brought the car to a halt.
    ‘Now I’m going to show you something remarkable. You won’t believe your eyes. Look over there.’
    What the boys saw was a broken-down tree. An elephant stood beside it.
    ‘What’s remarkable about that?’ asked Hal.
    ‘Watch.’
    The bark of the tree-trunk had already been torn off and the white wood was exposed. Presently the elephant raised his tusks and punched them deep into the wood. He exerted his great strength and, with a loud ripping sound, tore off a sheet of wood an inch or two thick and - six feet long.
    ‘What in the world is he going to do with that?’
    For answer, the elephant coiled the end of his trunk round the board, lifted it from his tusks, and actually put it in his mouth.
    Crunch, crunch - he chewed it up as if it were nothing but a potato chip. Within ten seconds the six-foot plank had disappeared into his great inside.
    He tore off strip after strip, chewed, then swallowed. He evidently thought it a delicious breakfast.
    ‘If he keeps that up,’ Roger said, ‘he’ll soon be a .wooden elephant’
    The boys had often seen elephants eating the leaves of a tree or even the twigs. But they had never before seen one eating the tree-trunk itself.
    This was surely a freak of nature. ‘I can’t think of anything else in the world that eats trees,’ Hal said.
    “There’s one,’ Crosby replied. ‘The termite. But it doesn’t take a plank at a time.’
    The elephant was so thoroughly enjoying his meal that he paid no attention to the car. He kept on filling himself with wood. Hal took photographs. People just wouldn’t believe this unless they could see it in pictures.
    ‘He was lucky to find a fallen tree.’
    ‘Lucky nothing,’ Crosby said. ‘He probably pushed it over himself.’
    ‘But that trunk is about five feet thick.’
    ‘Well, the elephant is more than five feet thick, and his strength matches his size. We lose a lot of trees to the elephants. If they can’t push a tree over they have another way of getting it down. They attack the standing tree on one side and keep cutting it until it falls. They are intelligent enough to step out of the way before it topples over. A young one who hadn’t learned to do this was pinned under the tree when it fell. We found him three days ago still under the tree with his back broken. He died before we could get him out.’
    The car climbed a steep trail to Poachers’ Lookout. In front of a small pavilion a ranger stood with his eye glued to a telescope. He snapped to attention and saluted as the warden stepped out of the car.
    ‘See anything?’ asked Crosby.
    ‘No, bwana,’ said the ranger. ‘Except some birds.’
    Crosby looked through the telescope. He let Hal take his place, and then Roger. They could plainly make out some vultures circling over a spot at the edge of a wood. They flew round and round as they usually do over a dying or dead animal.
    ‘Does it mean poachers?’ Hal asked.
    ‘I doubt it,’ said Crosby. ‘It’s only about two miles from our lodge. Surely they wouldn’t dare come that close. But we’ll go down and take a look.’
    They drove to the spot. A large black hulk lay at the edge of a grove of trees. There was no sign of any poacher. As the men stepped out of the car a cloud of vultures rose from the black body and climbed to join the birds circling above.
    ‘Dead rhino,’ said Crosby, and led the way to the side of the fallen animal.
    The animal was more than dead. He was hollow. There was a hole in his side as big as a barrel and his insides were gone. Nothing was left but a big black cave - and a terrible smell.
    The boys stooped and looked into the cave. ‘Poor brute,’ Hal said. ‘Perhaps he fell sick and died and the hyenas, jackals, and vultures chewed this hole in