He found them in an open grassy glade,
encircled by hills, and they were all waiting, silent, as he sped down
the hills toward them. They had heard him coming a long way. He was not
attempting silence. The jungle people had not got out of his way.
The old bull that led the herd, seventy years of age and at the pride of
his wisdom and strength, scarred, yellow-tusked and noble past any
elephant patriarch in the jungle, curled up his trunk when he saw him
come. He knew very well what would happen. And because no one knows
better than the jungle people what a good thing it is to take the
offensive in all battles, and because it was fitting his place and
dignity, he uttered the challenge himself.
The silence dropped as something from the sky. The little pink calves
who had never seen the herd grow still in this same way before, felt the
dawn of the storm that they could not understand, and took shelter
beneath their mothers' bellies. But they did not squeal. The silence
was too deep for them to dare to break.
It is always an epoch in the life of the herd when a young bull contests
for leadership. It is a much more serious thing than in the herds of
deer and buffalo. The latter only live a handful of years, then grow
weak and die. A great bull who has attained strength and wisdom enough
to obtain the leadership of an elephant herd may often keep it for forty
years. Kings do not rise and fall half so often as in the kingdoms of
Europe. For, as most men know, an elephant is not really old until he
has seen a hundred summers come and go.
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