CHAPTER SEVEN.
RE-STOCKING THE GUNS.
Next morning all three were astir betimes, and out of the hut by the earliest light of day.

Karl and Caspar were anxious to obtain more definite information about the elephant, whose existence Ossaroo was still inclined to doubt.

Indeed, with the exception of the three or four shrieking whistles to which the animal had given utterance, so silently and mysteriously had he come and departed, that they might almost have fancied the whole thing a dream.
But such an immense creature could not move about, without leaving some traces of his presence; and as he had crossed the stream, or rather a little embayment of the lake into which the stream emptied itself, no doubt his tracks would be found on the sandy shore.
As soon, therefore, as the day broke, all three started for the spot where the creature had been seen to cross.
On reaching it, they could no longer doubt that an elephant had paid them a visit.

Huge footprints--nearly as big as the bottom of a bushel measure--were deeply indented in the soft sand; and looking across the "straits" (for so they were in the habit of calling the narrow mouth of the bay), they could see other similar tracks on the opposite shore, where the animal had waded out.
Ossaroo was no longer doubtful as to the character of the creature that had made those tracks.

He had hunted elephants in the jungles of Bengal, and knew all the peculiarities of the grand quadruped.