A little patience!"
"'Wig-a-more! wig-a-more!' as the Scotch country folks say,"
shouted Joe, in high glee. "Gee-up! gee-up there!"
The huge animal now broke into a very rapid gallop.
He flung his trunk from side to side, and his monstrous
bounds gave the car several rather heavy thumps. Meanwhile
the doctor stood ready, hatchet in hand, to cut the
rope, should need arise.
"But," said he, "we shall not give up our anchor until
the last moment."
This drive, with an elephant for the team, lasted about
an hour and a half; yet the animal did not seem in the
least fatigued. These immense creatures can go over a
great deal of ground, and, from one day to another, are
found at enormous distances from there they were last
seen, like the whales, whose mass and speed they rival.
"In fact," said Joe, "it's a whale that we have harpooned;
and we're only doing just what whalemen do when out fishing."
But a change in the nature of the ground compelled
the doctor to vary his style of locomotion. A dense grove
of calmadores was descried on the horizon, about three
miles away, on the north of the prairie. So it became
necessary to detach the balloon from its draught-animal
at last.
Kennedy was intrusted with the job of bringing the
elephant to a halt.
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