Consequently, a badly placed bullet may merely infuriate the elephant without giving the hunter time to gain a place of safety, and thus be much worse than if the hunter had entirely missed his mark.
Among elephant hunters it is considered more dangerous to attack a cow elephant than a bull, for the cow is always ready and eager to defend its calf, hence when Colonel Roosevelt prepared to open fire on a cow elephant, accompanied by a calf, at a range of thirty yards, in a district where the highest tree was within reach of an elephant's trunk, the situation was one fraught with tense uncertainty.
Colonel Roosevelt is undoubtedly a brave man.

The men who have hunted with him in Africa say that he has never shown the slightest sign of fear in all the months of big game hunting that they have done together.
He "holds straight," as they say in shooting parlance, and at short range, where his eyesight is most effective, he shoots accurately.
This, then, was the dramatic situation at about twelve o'clock noon on November fifteenth, eight miles east of the Nzoia River, near Mount Elgon: Eight cow elephants, two _totos_, one ex-president with a double-barreled cordite rifle thirty yards away, supported by three other hunters similarly armed, with native gunbearers held in the rear as a supporting column.
The colonel opened fire; the biggest cow dropped to her knees and in an instant the air was thunderous with the excited "milling" of the herd of elephants.

For several anxious minutes the spot was the scene of much confusion, and when quiet was once more restored Colonel Roosevelt had killed three elephants and Kermit had killed one of the calves.

It had not been intended or desired to kill more than two of the cows, but with a herd of angry elephants threatening to annihilate an attacking party, sometimes the prearranged plans do not work out according to specifications.
Kermit was hastily despatched to notify our camp and the work of preparing the skins of the elephants was at once begun.
In the meantime, we at our camp, eight miles away from the scene of battle, were waiting eagerly for news of the hunting party, although expecting nothing for a day of so.

It seemed too much to expect that the hunt should have such a quick and successful termination.