During all this time, Chief Borden had been at the coaming of the open
hatchway, watching the “Jiggers” from the main deck; and, when the
electric lights had been turned on in the hold, he had been able to
enjoy “Shine’s” combat with the wild animals, from a gallery seat. At
first he had been merely an indifferent spectator, much preoccupied
with affairs of state in the department; but when he saw the lion
driven back among the cages like a doused cat, the shouts of laughter
from the men around him set him smiling under his grey mustache. These
men, under Keighley, were lowering the big line down into the hold to
attack the fire; and they amused themselves by shouting encouragement
to “Shine” as if they were following a bull fight. The situation was
the funnier because “Shine” was unable to hear them--on account of the
uproar around him--and unable to see them because he was in the light
and they in darkness; and he whooped and danced about with his nozzle,
unconscious that he was playing the clown for their amusement. “Give it
to ’em,” they called. “Kick ’em in the slats. Ho-ho! This ’s more fun
’an a circus!”
The chief--naturally a jovial man, with a bluff military
manner--enjoyed it as much as anybody. But when the bear appeared, they
all saw danger in the joke. “Here,” the chief cried. “He’ll never hold
that brute. Get a bigger line down to him. There comes another. They’ll
eat him up.”
Keighley and his men ran back to bring up a three-inch line, and the
chief remained laughing at the duel between “Shine” and the bears. He
shouted, “Back out, you fool!”
Moore and the fireman with him, who were just below where the chief
stood, heard the order and obeyed it. By so doing they left “Shine”
unprotected from an attack in the rear. When the third bear appeared,
the excitement became frantic; and the whole company, from the chief
down, pulled on the incoming hose and shouted and laughed together.
The chief, at the nozzle, was the first to see the lion creeping around
the hatch. “Stop him!” he cried, to nobody in particular. “Damn it
all! Behind you, man,” he yelled to “Shine.” “Look behind you!”
“Shine” could not hear him. The chief took off his cap and threw it
down at the animal, vainly. He dropped on his hands and knees beside
the hatch, clutching the nozzle of the three-inch line, bellowing
hoarsely for water, half-choked with laughter. When “Shine” caught
sight of the lion and turned from the bears to drive it back, the chief
saw the bears closing in, and he hammered on the iron coaming of the
hatch with the nozzle, in an inarticulate excitement. And then he got
water just as “Shine” dropped his pipe and ran; and he struggled with
his kicking nozzle, the tears of laughter running down his cheeks,
unable to see the bears whom he was trying to take in the flank with
his stream so as to hold them until “Shine” could make good his
retreat.
Keighley had been working his men like an old slave-driver, glancing
back at the chief, every now and then, with a sly, dry smile. Now he
caught Borden’s pipe and steadied it. “All right, chief,” he said.
“He’s out. Here he comes.”
“Shine” climbed, panting, up the ladder. “Hold those brutes off us
now,” Keighley ordered. “We got to get down to that fire. Here ‘Shine’!
You an’ Cripps take this pipe an’ keep those cats away from the hatch.”
“Shine” came to the chief’s pipe, grinning at the remarks of the men.
“You’re as good as a circus,” Borden said, wiping his eyes.
“They scared the tripe out o’ me.”
[Illustration: _Keighley turned to his pipe. “I’m responsible for this
boat”_