The next day one of the three horsemen came back to tell me that he had marked down the herd of elephants, and that it was being watched by his companions. He carried in his hand pieces of half-chewed aloes with the saliva still damp upon them, which the elephants had torn up a few hours ago. Leaving most of the baggage behind in the camp at Lower Sheikh, and posting Núr Osman and another of the men in charge, I mounted the Sheikh Pass the next morning at sunrise, accompanied by two camels and five men. At the top of the pass I shot a spotted hyæna, to the delight of the mullahs living at the village of Guldu Hamed close by, as it had stolen several of their sheep.
Half an hour before sunset two horsemen came racing over the plain from the Wagar direction, and poising their spears circled round us at full speed. They pulled up shouting “_Mót!_” (Hail!) and reported the latest tidings about the herd. I learned the melancholy news that it had got away in the night. My men, however, tried to comfort me by saying, “_Insh’ Allah Bukera_” (Please God, to-morrow). We camped at an empty zeríba in a strip of bush near Soksodi, where there was firewood and water, intending to search for the elephants next day. We lit a roaring fire and threw ourselves down on the sand to sleep. At dawn, while my men were preparing coffee, I took a stroll round camp, and saw by several broad footprints in the sand that a large lion had been prowling round our bivouac all night Later on my men pointed out old tracks of elephants, broken branches, and aloe clumps, indicating the course of a herd which must have passed two or three days before. I sent all the men into the covert to look for fresh tracks, but at noon they returned unsuccessful.
At two in the afternoon some shepherds came to water a flock of sheep on their way to the Berbera market, and they said that they had passed a herd of elephants only an hour ago in a valley to the south. On my asking for a guide they refused, hoping to get me to pay heavily for their information, so I shouldered my double four-bore rifle and started with the two Midgán trackers on the back trail of the sheep, hoping to find the elephants without a guide. The path led past two small sandstone hills, and we then entered a sloping valley, down the centre of which ran a sand-river bordered by dense jungle. Heavy masses of _armo_ creeper draped the branches of the trees, and as we advanced fragments of creeper, which had evidently been torn down by the elephants, lay across our path.