The pit diggers toiled on. Near night fall, and at slightly over seven feet they hit a rock layer that could not be penetrated. The pit was not really deep enough for an eleven foot tall elephant, but Kalala decided that with a lame rear leg and with the damage the hunters should do before the bull reached the pit, it would hold him. More a hope than a promise, Thos thought, but there was nothing to be done about it. Stakes were cut and sharpened. A fire was built and the points of the stakes were hardened in its flame. Then the stakes were placed in the pit, the butts wedged between cracks in the rock. Their points would add some measure to the hunters’ luck. Finally the pit was recovered with the sod cut earlier, resting on a latticework of branches.

They ate well. Thos had brought down a young and tender gazelle, and Ddara found wild melons growing near the lake. The gazelle was nearly cooked by the time the diggers returned to camp. They had busied themselves almost at once with the cutting of the carcass and the filling of empty bellies. Now it was late and they should rest. But eager anticipation for tomorrow's hunt kept the tired young men from sleep. They all sat around the rim of the depression. The rock ringed fire, burning low in the middle the bowl, still lighted the dark enough to reflect off their faces. 

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