"Well," said his uncle, "I'm not by any means sure that I am justified in letting you two lads begin elephant hunting so soon. But you've done right well. Thank goodness, you escaped that second bull, Guy. A wounded elephant is one of the most formidable beasts in the world, and you never quite know what may happen when one is charging you. You are born to be lucky, Guy," he continued, "I do believe. But keep your head, and don't be too venturesome. They say the life of a professional elephant hunter averages no more than half a dozen years. I can well believe it. There are so many risks, and the labour is so enormous. Well, now, I reckon that these five elephants we have bagged will yield some four hundred pounds of ivory, which at ten shillings a pound will bring in two hundred pounds. Not a bad morning's work that, eh?"
"Father," interrupted Tom, with wild eyes and streaming face--for he was still, as indeed they all were, suffering from the effects of the great hunt--"I don't want to sell my tusks. I should like to take them home to mother, and have them hung up in the dining-room at Bamborough, over the sideboard or somewhere."
"So you shall, my boy," said Mr. Blakeney, with pleased face. "That's an excellent suggestion. But whatever your mother will say to me for allowing you to be hunting elephants in this way, I don't know."
Leaving Poeskop, who carried his native hatchet, to begin the task of chopping out the tusks of the slain elephants, Mr. Blakeney returned with the two lads to the wagon. The oxen were inspanned, and a trek was made that afternoon to the scene of the hunt. Here a fresh camp was formed, and the whole of the next day was spent in chopping out the remaining tusks and packing them away on the wagon.
"Baas," said Poeskop, on the evening of that day, as his masters sat together as usual at their cheery camp fire, "I saw something this morning which I didn't understand. I don't like it."
"What was it, Poeskop?" said Mr. Blakeney, looking with an amused smile at the Bushman's serious face, puckered just now into innumerable wrinkles.
"Well, my baas," returned Poeskop, "it was this. When I first went out this morning, at sun-up, to start cutting out the rest of the teeth, I found the spoor of some one who had been prowling round our camp and looking at all our elephants."