THE DOG WAGON
Night on the circus lot. The big top, shadowy, dim, even in the glare
of the electric arcs atop the ticket wagon, had fallen, now to lay, a
flattened mushroom upon the ground, while hurrying canvasmen unfastened
the lacings, and the barking lot superintendent prepared for the
lowering of the poles. One by one the big wagons were trucking toward
the first smoking torch at a corner of the grounds, the beacon light
to guide tired horses and men toward the loading runs, half a mile
away. The “led stock” and “ring stock” already had made its way toward
the horse cars. The “bull cars” were loaded, except for the three
work-elephants which had been left on the lot for emergency, and which
now, gray hulks against the shafts of light, were released at last,
and obedient to the hook of the bull-man, were trundling in satisfied
fashion toward their rest for the night. The menagerie superintendent
approached.
“That mutt still on the job?” he asked.
The bull-tender nodded.
“Yeh--over there.”
Something stirred in the shadows, came forward a few steps, hesitated,
then hurried into hiding again. The superintendent grunted.
“Looks okay. Watch him at the cars. If he stacks up, join him out.”
Again a nod. Then the elephant line went on, while the shadowy trailer
followed in the darkness, fearful of coming too close, yet equally
fearful, it seemed, of dropping too far behind. It had been thus for
three nights now--a disappearance in the daytime, a reappearance at
night, when the steel loading runs were down and the railroad yards a
clatter of shouts and grinding steel, as, one after another, the wagons
of the big show were loaded for the night.
Down into the glare of the electric lights and the carbides. Down to
the shouts of the razorbacks and “polers,” the clatter of wagons, the
hollow pounding of horses traveling up the runs to the stock cars.
At last the “bull” or elephant car. The three big hulks clambered
upward--and the bull-man waited, standing far aside in the darkness.
Again a moment of hesitation, then a creeping something came forward,
to slink to the runway, to pause, one foot slightly raised in
preparation for progress or flight; but there came no sound from the
bull-man; nothing save the shifting of the big brutes within the car
and the crunching of hay. The interloper took a step forward, paused
again, moved on once more, then with a sudden dart was inside the car
and hidden in the hay. The bull-man turned.
“Hey, Deafy!” he called to a passing property man. “Tell that there dog
punk I can fill up that empty compartment in the wagon to-morrow. Just
joined one out.”
Which meant that the next day there would be a new occupant for the
dog wagon of the circus, a new applicant for training, a new “trouper”
among the canine personnel of the show. One that would respond to every
command, for the simple reason that he had chosen his own life; that he
had run away with the circus because he loved it and wanted it, because
he was a circus dog at heart, with the love of trouping ingrained
within him. Without knowing it, he had passed an examination and proved
himself worthy of a life where there can be no weaklings. The dog
wagon of a circus is the custodian of many a dog history, and of the
inside story of many a queer quirk in a dog nature. And to the name of
practically every occupant can be placed the notation, “Present through
his own knowledge and desire.”
To those of you who watch the various trained-dog acts of a circus, it
may seem a difficult thing to procure the various performers; perhaps
you’ve often wondered where they came from, how they were trained; and
in some cases you may have sorrowed a bit at the “poor animals” forced
to travel day by day, earning their living by the performance of their
tricks. All of which is very sweet and pretty, but it is wrong in one
particular. In seventy-five cases out of a hundred, the circus dog is
there either because he has insisted on being there, and persisted even
in undergoing hardships to be able to pass his examination, or because
the fact that he was wanted by the circus has saved him from the
chloroform room of the pound-keeper. The circus dog as a general rule
comes from only two sources,--the dog pound, or the voluntary “joining
out” of a canine who comes to the circus of his own accord and insists
upon staying with it, even to the extent of “bumming” his way from town
to town! With the exception of the twenty-five per cent. representing
the dogs belonging to the individual performers, which perhaps have
been purchased from other performers, or trainers, or which, like
their human counterparts of the circus world, are of a long string
of performing ancestors, the offspring taking up the life of their
forbears and “carrying on the act.” In these instances, the values run
high; Alf Loyal’s dogs, for instance, with the Ringling Brothers-Barnum
and Bailey Circus, are worth a young fortune, while Abe Aronson’s
“rabbit” and “elephant” dogs are insured for several thousand dollars.
The same is true of other canine troupes belonging to individuals. But
even here and there among these valued dogs are others, performing as
well and valued as highly, whose past could be written in a continuous
chapter of back alleys and weird escapes from the dog catcher.
Nor is every dog which joins the circus taken along merely as a
performer. Quite the opposite. There are often more canines outside
the ring around a big show, each with his or her job, than ever appear
under the big top. There is the elephant dog, for instance, trained to
remain around the big animals, to trot under their heels, to appear
without warning from one side or another, or to stand in front of them
and bark or snarl, to sleep with them in the big bull car at nights,
and chief of all, to keep other dogs from the vicinity of that herd.
Upon that dog, usually a nondescript, does the safety of the show often
rest, and for one very good reason: elephants seem to form a strange
fascination for dogs, while to an elephant, a dog is a fearsome beast,
breeding fear and trepidation, and forming one of the best excuses ever
invented for a panic! Hence the elephant dog, to which the big mammals
become accustomed, and upon which they eventually come to look upon as
a sort of protector, acting in the final analysis in the same fashion
as a pacifier to a mammoth baby.
Then too, there are the menagerie dogs; just dogs, with apparently no
purpose in life except to trot around the menagerie tent, or sleep
beneath a cage. But they all have their duties. There are the ones
which accompany the led stock--any animal which can be led by a halter
is known in the circus as “led” stock--and which know every member
of that department. More than once, when on the check-up at night, a
zebra or llama is found to be missing, the led stock dog has departed
also, not to appear again until that missing animal is accounted for
and presented at the runs, with the dog nipping at its heels! In circus
history there is even the case of Scotty, a little Scotch terrier
rescued from a dog pound, her puppies chloroformed, and a baby lion
given into her keeping to raise. Which task she performed with the
result that Kaiser is now a feature lion of the menagerie of a big
circus, while Scotty sleeps in a little silk-lined casket, her life
shortened because of her faithful sacrifices to a king of beasts.
Around the menagerie it seems that the dog forms the natural companion
for any animal. No matter whether its breed be feline or canine, equine
or bovine, when a companion is needed, a new dog is added to the circus
roster. Seldom does that dog fail, even though the course of its
faithfulness should lead to danger or even to death!
[Illustration: COLLIES MAKE EXCELLENT CIRCUS DOGS.]
[Illustration: WAITING TO ENTER THE BIG SHOW.]
Not so many years ago, one of the feminine trapeze performers of
a western circus was crossing the lot to her evening meal in the
cookhouse, when suddenly she turned with the knowledge of something
trailing at her heels. A moment more and she had halted, to survey in
pitying fashion a small, woolly, half-starved mongrel, which, with
whining and excessive wagging of tail, was seeking to inveigle her into
a capture. But dogs, as pets, are not welcomed on a circus. The trapeze
performer shook her head.
“Run along, pups!” she commanded, “I can’t take you!”
To which the mongrel paid no attention whatever. He had determined that
here was surcease from hunger and privations, and he persisted in his
appeals. The circus woman shrugged her shoulders.
“Well,” came finally, “I guess I can get you a square meal anyway.”
Whereupon she gathered him in her arms, hid him under the loose
dressing-room cape which she was wearing, smuggled him into the
cookhouse and surreptitiously fed him.
By that time, the pup had won his battle. Once out of the cookhouse,
the performer hurried to the dog wagon. But the “dog boy” shook his
head. In the first place, the circus didn’t need any more dogs, and
besides that, every compartment in the wagon--a regular circus vehicle
fitted with thirty or more small, square boxes which, bedded with
straw, form a resting place for the show canines at night--was filled.
The performer turned toward the menagerie and its superintendent. There
a different welcome was waiting.
“Gosh!” said the menagerie boss, “just what I’ve been looking for.
First day this season there haven’t been a dozen dogs hanging around,
waiting to be picked up. Always happens, just when you need ’em worst.
I’ve got to have a companion for that Pat kangaroo. Lucy, his mate,
died this morning.”
So a bargain was made that the new dog should be the companion of Pat,
the kangaroo, from evening until after parade time in the mornings,
when it was to go into the keeping, for the afternoon hours, of the
performer who had rescued it from starvation. Into the kangaroo cage
went the little woolly mongrel, to bark in excited fashion for a few
moments, then to edge forward in gingerly survey of the timid, grieving
thing, which, by this time, had retreated to the farthest part of
its cage. There was an exchange of dog and kangaroo courtesies, and
evidently a few greetings in the universal language of animaldom. Late
that night, when the superintendent inspected the boarding up of the
various dens, there lay Pat and Dingy as he had been christened, fast
asleep. Friendship had been effected, and the life of a kangaroo
saved. For a time, at least. But tragedy was in the offing.
The next day the performer came for her dog, to take it to the dressing
tent, there to pet and feed it, while in the menagerie a kangaroo
watched in timid, excited fashion for its return. Night came, and the
dog was restored to the den, to hurry to its strange cage-mate and
frolic about it, while the kangaroo gave a greeting equally effusive.
It was the beginning of a routine which progressed to such an extent
that there came the time when the performer had only to release the dog
from its chain in the dressing tent and turn to her work of packing,
safe in the knowledge that Dingy would take a straight line for the
menagerie and the kangaroo cage, there to stand and bark until some
attendant opened the door and lifted him within. Then came tragedy.
One night the circus reeled and tossed and struggled in the midst of a
storm. Peaks lowered, workers struggling about in mud to their knees,
horses hook-roped to every wagon, work-elephants wallowing through the
mire, the big show strove its best to free itself from the stickiness
of a “soft lot” and hurry on to make good the next-day promises of the
billboards, a hundred and fifty miles away. In the menagerie, the last
of the dens was being boarded up, when an attendant suddenly paused,
looked within, then hurried for the superintendent.
“Dingy ain’t showed up yet,” he announced. “Ain’t seen nothin’ of him,
an’ Pat’s jumpin’ around his cage an’ barkin’--all excited. It’s way
past time for Dingy--I guess he knows it.”
The superintendent gave an order.
“Tear over to the dressing tent, quick. Maybe Miss Laird didn’t turn
him loose.”
But the menagerie boy returned with the report that Dingy had started
from the dressing tent at his usual hour, apparently on his customary
beeline for the kangaroo cage. There was only one explanation: the dog
had decided upon a different life and had deserted the show. Up went
the boards of the kangaroo cage, the animal leaping excitedly about
within, emitting its queer, frightened bark, sure evidence that it too
knew something was wrong. All the way to the runs it continued to thump
about, to cry out, but there was no remedy. Dingy was gone.
An hour later, at the elephant cars, the superintendent, muddy,
bedraggled, tired, was watching the loading of the last bull. There
came the dim view of a moving figure in the darkness, then the voice of
the menagerie boy.
“Got your spotlight, Boss?” he asked. “I got Dingy here. Found him down
at the main runs--crawled all the way, I guess. Smashed up.”
There came the gleam of electricity, then a long moment of silence.
Dingy had not run away. Instead, in the muddiness and darkness of the
circus lot, he evidently had floundered in the course of a plunging,
struggling team. Half of his left side, and of his left hind leg, was
literally torn away. Evidently the menagerie had departed when he had
summoned the strength to reach the place where it had rested that day.
But he had followed, crawling, for nearly a mile to the circus runs.
Dingy died that night. Pat died three weeks later, refusing the
companionship of another dog, refusing food, even water. Animal grief,
so menagerie men will tell you, is the most intense grief in all the
world.
Nor do animals easily forget their cage-mates, especially dogs. Out on
the Selig Zoo in Los Angeles are a lioness and a dog living in the same
cage, against every effort of the keepers. They were born on the same
day, several years ago, and each later became motherless. In an effort
to maintain the life of each through companionship, they were placed
together and grew to maturity. Then there came the fear that canine and
feline nature would assert itself, with a consequent battle and death,
with the results that efforts were made to separate the pair.
They took the dog away, far into another part of the gardens, and there
gave it luxuries it never had known before. But the dog did not want
luxuries. It wanted only that lion. While, in the lion’s den, a tawny
beast roared and bellowed and beat itself against the bars in a fury
of excitement; nor could even the distance of the width of the gardens
really separate them. The dog could hear the roaring of the lion, and
answered in staccato barks and in howlings. The lioness caught the call
and answered in turn. Day and night it was the same. The menagerie
men returned them to each other, waited a week and attempted it once
more. In vain. Then, for a space of three months, they tried a scheme
of separation, for an hour at a time, then two hours, then three, with
success apparently before them. But when the first separation of a
night came, the old remonstrance began again and was continued. They
were partners, that lioness and that dog, and partners they are to-day,
their battle won, cage-mates forever as far as the menagerie men are
concerned. The dog appears perfectly happy. It has no desires for the
usual canine pleasures; running and playing mean nothing to it. It has
a cage nature, a cage appearance, if such a thing can be, and it cares
for nothing except the company of its leonine companion.
But to return to the circus and its dogs, and its methods of gaining
possession of them. One hears much of the boy who runs away to join
the circus, a thing which rarely happens, for circuses are business
institutions. In the first place, they don’t want young boys. They need
persons grown to sufficient strength to possess the necessary muscle
to endure the hardships and work of a circus lot, and that strength
doesn’t come until a boy is old enough to go about where he chooses.
One hears little of the dogs which run away with a circus, and yet
there is a set formula about the menagerie, a question asked almost
daily:
“Shall we watch for a mutt to-day?”
Because there is hardly a day in which some dog does not attempt to
“join out,” and through his own efforts, seek to attach himself to
the show. For all of it there is a reason. If there is one thing that
a dog loves, it is horses. If there is another, it is the sound of a
band. And if there is a third, it is a general air of excitement and
hurly-burly. The next time the circus comes to town, watch the band
wagons of the parade. You’ll find in the wake, at the sides, and at the
rear, a collection of from one to twenty dogs, trotting happily along,
tongue lolling from open jaws, tail aloft, step as springy as that of a
high-school horse in the ring. The circus represents to the average dog
a sort of heaven where things go exactly the way he wants them to go,
and he deliberately chooses the show as a permanent place of abode and
insists upon his choice until the circus allows him his desires.
For the dog who goes to the circus undergoes a period of apprenticeship
which lasts for days and for hundreds of miles of travel. The “likely”
dog usually follows the parade to the circus grounds, there to loaf
about under the cages, or trail some particular hostler or menagerie
man until that person takes cognizance of him. Which doesn’t happen
until night comes, when the circus has traveled to the train, and the
dog is still in evidence.
If the circus is “full up,” the dog stays behind. But if there is an
opening for a good, faithful dog that likes the show life, there is a
gruff command just as the “high-ball” signal sounds, then a scramble as
the dog is tossed to one of the flat cars, there to find a bed as best
he may, beneath a wagon, or upon a pile of canvas. Thus he spends his
first night, in the open upon a jolting flat car, with every possible
opportunity to think it all over and decide whether or not he really
wants this rough-and-tumble existence. The next morning, when the
circus goes to the lot--and if he goes with it--he may be fed or he
may not. Usually not. If that dog wants the circus life sufficiently,
he’ll find a way to exist and to remain. When night comes again, if he
is a weakling, he’ll not be present at the loading runs, having found
an easier existence. But in nine cases out of ten, there he’ll be,
whining and begging to be put aboard again. When the third night comes,
he usually discovers a means of getting aboard himself, and when he
shows up on the fourth morning, satisfied and happy, there is a gruff
verdict, and a new occupant for the dog wagon. He has won his place as
a circus dog, just as any candidate wins a position, through merits,
and being the “dog fitted for the place.”
So much for the dog which voluntarily “joins out.” The other type--the
one which comes to the circus as a result of a circus demand--is
perhaps a far more fortunate creature, even though he doesn’t know it.
For he has been saved from death; his place of collection is the dog
pound.
Only the mutt, the mongrel, the dog which by his actions, his
appearance and his mannerisms displays plainly that he is only a stray
and worthless, so far as dogs go, is allowed to “join out” in the
usual fashion. The circus doesn’t care for lawsuits, or be attached in
the next town for having “stolen” the pedigreed pet of some mourning
dog-owner. The result is that a dog with a collar, or one which
appears too sleek or well fed, is not welcome about a circus lot. The
friendship of the hostler, the performer or the menagerie man is not
for him. It is too dangerous; and besides, there is an easier way,--the
dog pound.
There the circus man goes to look over the collection of animals which
have been picked up on the streets, and for which the time-limit for
redemption has passed. For certain acts, there must be certain dogs;
for “pad work,” where the dog seizes the clown by the seat of the
trousers, or does a “strong-jaw” act all his own, by being pulled to
the top of the tent while hanging by his teeth to a leather pad, there
must be the bull dog, preferably a large-sized, not-too-highly-bred
dog of the Boston bull type. For the races there must be Russian wolf
hounds; for hind-leg walking, there must be the collie or the Spitz;
while for general, all-round performing excellence, there are the fox
terriers. And around the circus, you’ll find many a pedigreed dog of
these various species, but rarely a dog with a pedigree. Their pasts
are hidden, owner and ancestor. The pound-keeper usually forms the wall
between.
Nor is the dog which comes to the big show a circus dog immediately
upon his arrival. Instead, for a week or so, he is a dejected
individual, snarled at, mistreated by the rest of the pack, tied to his
own picket pin, apart from the remainder at feeding time, jailed in
his compartment of the dog wagon when the rest are liberated. And all
for the reason that there is nothing so clannish as the dog pack of a
circus. Some way, the members of that pack seem to realize that they
are occupants of a different life; apart from the common, ordinary dog
which knows only a home and a master. A circus dog never fights singly.
He has the whole pack to back him, the wolf instinct strongly to the
fore. When a town dog crosses the trail of a circus dog, it is usually
a battle to the death.
Therefore, until the regular pack becomes accustomed to the new
arrival, he is nothing but a hated “towner,” regarded with the strange
sense of enmity which runs all the way through the circus world. Day
after day, however, the other dogs see the newcomer taken into the
ring during the interim between the matinée and the night show, for
training. Gradually there comes the understanding that he too is a
circus dog; then the growling and snarling ceases. No longer does he
stand apart at his picket pin. He is a part of the pack, as ready as
any of the rest to set upon and kill any “towner dog” that comes his
way.
And once a circus dog, always a circus dog, for the instinct never
dies, even though it may lead into strange channels; once, in fact,
to a story of dogdom that has had few equals even in fiction,--the
narrative of Nosey, and an instinct of the spring, when circus loves
comes strongest, which turned her to a thing of the wild, never to
reach civilization again. Somewhere now, in the wild country of
Northwestern Colorado, where the mountainous rises stretch mile on
mile, where there are still bears to be found in the berry patches at
autumn, and the deer and elk crash through the underbrush about the
great rock-slides, is Nosey, no longer a dog as dogs go.
Perhaps the story is best from the beginning. No one except a circus
man really understands the importance of a dog to an elephant herd.
It means as much as steam gauge to a boiler, or a steering wheel to
an automobile. If there is anything in the world that an elephant
loves, it is to become frightened. The old story of the mouse and the
elephant is true to a certain extent, and the thing of things with
which to shake an elephant absolutely from his foundations is a dog.
Perhaps it is a natural antipathy: perhaps it is the fact that dogs
have a habit of going where they choose and since elephants are so big
and cumbersome that they cannot readily see behind them, they are more
easily frightened by something woolly darting between their legs, or
appearing apparently from nowhere under their trunks.
However, a dog is the elephant’s Nemesis, and to the wise circus man,
the only cure is the disease itself. Hence every menagerie has several
non-descripts whose sole job is to be constantly about the elephants,
and by their presence to reassure the great beasts and keep them
reminded that the things which are moving about them are only dogs and
not some fearsome thing to start them on a panic. At the loading runs,
of all places, are those dogs necessary; otherwise, a dog fight, or the
appearance of any street mongrel, might start a stampede that would
wreck a town.
It happened one night on a big show, shortly before the close of the
season in 1916--the town was a small place in Texas--that the menagerie
superintendent noticed something small and yellow stealthily following
the elephant herd from the grounds to the loading runs, there to
evade the protective sallies of the old elephant dog, and dart first
toward one elephant man, then another, in an effort to gain at least
momentary notice. But the show was “full up” on dogs; the menagerie
superintendent had given orders only that morning that no more were
to be taken on. Besides, the bull-men saw that the intruder was
undoubtedly of good stock, a half-grown female of the Chow breed, and
circus men, as has been mentioned before, are skittish of pedigreed
volunteers. So they merely shunted the dog aside, and with gruff
commands drove her from the runways when she sought to evade them and
crawl into the elephant car. Finally the doors were closed, the tired
elephant men went to their bunks, and the little waif was left in
darkness.
But luck played with her. She remained beside the elephant car,
waiting, whining. A passing “razorback” or car-loader halted, reflected
a moment, decided that one of the show’s elephant dogs had been
forgotten in the loading, and tossed her upon a flat car. The next
morning, surprised elephant men noticed her again “on the lot,” a
hundred miles from their starting point of the night before, loitering
at the edge of the canvas, peeking through when the wind raised the
side walls, then at times seeking to come within, only to be driven
away by the old elephant dog, watchful of every passing canine. That
night she again waited in the darkness, and the next morning--how
no one knows--she once more made her appearance on a show grounds,
seventy-five miles farther on.
It was too much persistence even for a circus that didn’t need an extra
dog. The elephant men halted now and then in their work to give her a
pat of encouragement. Even the old elephant dog relented, and watchful,
a bit suspicious in his hospitality, allowed her to come within the
menagerie tent and sit for a few moments at the head of the picket
line. A week later Nosey had won her place with the show, for the rest
of the season at least.
Nosey because she had nosed her way into the circus, nosed her way into
the cookhouse, where she had inveigled the busy chefs and hurrying
flunkeys to toss her enough food to sustain life, nosed her way past
the guardianship of the elephant dog and into the affections of the
menagerie men. For the rest of the season and the winter, at least, she
was installed as a fixture, and when the show went into quarters at
Denver, Nosey went also, content to bed herself down in an unobtrusive
corner, to live upon the droppings from the chopping blocks as the
menagerie men cut the daily food of the lions, tigers and other cats,
content with anything, so that she might be near the things she
loved,--the inmates of the animal house. Through the winter the world
was hers; then spring came.
There was no room for Nosey this season. The animal superintendent
scratched his head, considered long, then telephoned a doctor who lived
in a suburb, some ten miles from town. She’d have a good time there;
the doctor drove to winter quarters, took Nosey into his arms and his
heart, and departed. The show went forth to the road. A month passed.
Then came a sorrowful letter from Denver. The dog had disappeared from
her new home. Shortly afterward a policeman had reported that he had
been forced to kill a dog of her description because of the evidences
of rabies. Around the menagerie the word passed that Nosey was dead.
On went the show, to its sallies into the North, its quick spurts into
the moneyed territories in the East, the long trail through the small
town of the “Death Trail” on its way to the Western coast, and finally
into the far South for the end of its season. Once more the railroad
yards of Denver were cluttered with wagons and horses and tableaus,
scarred from the mud and tribulations of bad lots and long hauls; it
was November again; the circus was home for the long months of winter,
and the hurried activities of refurnishing that it might be ready for
the road when the bluebirds sang again. And with the arrival of the
first wagon at winter quarters a gaunt, half-starved thing darted from
her position at the animal-house door, closed and locked until the
menagerie superintendent should arrive. She weaved in wild circles,
rushing to the horses, then darting away again, running to the door of
the animal house, whining, scratching, then swerving away once more;
a beast which acted as one crazed, circling and twisting in a perfect
hysteria of excitement. The long line of elephants came up the snowy
street; the dog yowled and barked, rushed to the animal men, then
whirled away again. The bull line was halted. Word was rushed to the
superintendent.
“There’s a mad dog in the yard there. Better bump it off before it
stampedes these here bulls.”
The superintendent reached into a wagon box for his revolver, then
carefully went forward. The dog sighted him, barked joyously, then
once more began those excitement-crazed circles, a gaunt, weakened
thing which swirled again and again, at last to drop from sheer
exhaustion. The revolver was raised. The superintendent stepped
forward--closer--closer--then halted!
Nosey! he called in surprised tones, and strength came once more to
the weakened dog. She turned; then crawling, she made her way to him,
to lick his hands, cry and whine her happiness, then with wavering
steps to turn again toward the menagerie house door. The superintendent
whirled.
“Bring on those bulls,” he shouted. “There isn’t anything wrong with
this dog, except that it’s half-starved.”
The door of the animal house was unlocked. In shot the dog, to make the
rounds of the place, to investigate everything with quick sniffings,
even to refuse food in her excitement, and at last to flop exhausted
upon a pile of hay at the end of the picket line. When visiting
neighbors, welcoming the circus home again, came that afternoon to
winter quarters, they told the true story of Nosey, the story of
a shadowy canine which had appeared three months before at winter
quarters, which had refused every approach of friendship lest she again
be taken from the place she loved; which had haunted the place day and
night, gaining her food as best she could, evading every living thing
until she had become known to the whole neighborhood as “The Phantom
Dog.” The policemen had made a mistake in his description; Nosey had
merely gone back to her circus, content to starve if need be, in
waiting for its return.
There was no question about her place with the show now. She was the
circus favorite, with the big bull herd as her especial charge. There
even came the time when jealousy arose between her and Mutt, the
regular elephant dog, a duel which was fought out; then Mutt decided
to take up another position in the menagerie, leaving Nosey in supreme
command.
She ran that elephant herd as a general would command an army. She went
with them to the cars at night, she saw that they were loaded; then
crawled in with them--the herd mascot. She guarded them during the
day; the first sally of a town dog toward them meant a slashing attack
which invariably sent the intruder hurrying away, happy to be anywhere
except around elephants. When circus visitors approached too close for
their own safety, it was Nosey, who, with a snarl, sent them back to a
common-sense position. A stampede happened; an elephant was lost. It
was Nosey who trailed her, rushed back to the circus lot, found the
superintendent, then led him to where the stray had been located. There
came the time when Nosey even went into the ring with her big charges.
Then came a change.
The superintendent and his wife decided to leave the circus and live
upon a ranch, far in the Elkhorn Range in Northwestern Colorado.
Nosey, with two other circus dogs, was taken along. It was winter;
the temperature went to thirty and forty below; Nosey apparently was
content to remain in the warm ranch house and wait for spring, when
undoubtedly there would be the circus again.
When the warm days came, when the snow of the high range began to
crust, making travel easy, Nosey would wander forth, look down into the
warmer country below, then turn to her master and mistress in pitiful
whining; as if to ask when they would troupe again, when the band
would play once more. But there was only the work of the ranch, never
the sound of music, nor the blatter of the midway. One day Nosey was
missing.
For two days they saw nothing of her. Then one morning, the former
superintendent, traveling the miles to the mail box on the main road,
saw a wary coyote pack, and with it something yellow and furry, unlike
the rest. He called to her, and Nosey came forward, wagging her tail,
apparently content to accompany him once more. For two days she
remained at home, then once more disappeared. This time for the summer.
They did not see her again until late the next fall, when, as though
she never had been away, she trotted into the house, made the rounds
of the place, nipped at the trousers leg of the former superintendent,
ran out the door, came back, ran away again, and returned in an effort
to lead the man forth. At last he followed, with his wife, far over the
hills, to a hollow log where Nosey halted in proud maternity. Within,
yowling and tumbling, were four half-breed coyote puppies.
They gathered up the babies and took them home, Nosey trotting happily
beside them. But again it was only a momentary return to civilization.
Once more she disappeared, taking her puppies with her, this time in
finality. Up there in the Elkhorn a former menagerie superintendent
and his wife set out food when the heavy snows come and scan the hills
when the coyotes shriek, but Nosey evidently has settled upon her own
existence. Once came a howling in the night, close to the house, a
track in the snow; but that was all. Nosey has not been seen since the
day she left with her puppies, to “troupe” with the coyotes.
Quite the opposite to the story of Nosey is that of Mike, one of a trio
of performing fox terriers with a small circus. The day was unusually
hot and sultry; every animal on the show was tired and logy--the
trainers were as fatigued as the dogs. In cracking his whip for the
“flash” of the act, the terrier trainer miscalculated and caught Mike a
terrific blow across the back and flanks.
The dog did not understand that it all was a mistake. He only knew that
he had been punished when he did not deserve it. A yelp of pain, a rush
and he had disappeared from the ring, not to be found again. The show
left town, a new dog was broken for the act, and Mike all but forgotten.
Two years later, the show returned to the stand where Mike had
disappeared. The same dog boy was in charge of the wagon, the same
trainer handling his trio of fox terriers. Late afternoon came, and
with it a tramp fox terrier, dirty, bony, and rough-coated, which
trotted upon the circus lot with an air of easy familiarity, sniffed
about the horse tents, investigated the dressing room, then found the
way to the dog boy and sought by every possible form of dog language to
make himself known. For a long time it all was a mystery, then the dog
boy grinned.
“Hello, Mike!” he announced. “Decided to come back, huh?”
Mike it was! What was more, when they took him into the ring and gave
him cues which he had not heard in two years, he responded almost
immediately, doing his flips, stretching for the “bridge” and returning
to his various “stands” and “set-ups” as though he never had been away.
Mike is still on the job with the circus; more, so faithful is he that
he is not confined at a picket line as are the other dogs. He has had
his taste of the “towner’s world,” and the circus is all he wants.
In fact, faithfulness seems to be the quality of qualities with dogs
who join the circus. Several years ago, George Brown, an English clown,
who with his performing fox terriers long has been a feature with
all the big shows, was stricken with ptomaine poisoning and taken
to the hospital. That afternoon one of his dogs, whose act consisted
of being “dressed” in a miniature horse’s head and tail, and doing a
high-school act around the hippodrome track, suddenly rebelled against
the substitute clown who had taken Brown’s place and scurried under the
side wall, horse’s head and all. To the dressing tent he went, to dart
in frenzied fashion up and down the aisles of trunks, searching for his
master; then before any one could catch him, once more he disappeared.
That afternoon and night a frantic dog boy and all of Clown Alley
searched in vain for George Brown’s dog. The circus left town without
him, and a frightened dog boy waited in trembling for the return of the
clown. But when George Brown came back to the show, there was the dog
under his arm!
“I thought I had ’em,” he announced joyfully. “It was two days after
the show’d gone and I was able to sit up. Happened to look out the
window, and there was a horse, about ten inches high, running around
the hospital lawn, like he was trying to follow a trail. After I’d
got my senses, I whistled. Sure enough, it was the pup! Hadn’t had
anything to eat or drink for two days; was just about gone when the
nurse brought him in. Couldn’t take anything, you know, on account of
that horse’s head over his own. Been following my trail all the time,
I guess. Next time I get sick,” and George Brown blinked slightly,
“those pups go with me!”
Nor is that instance any more marked than the one of Ragsy, who was
nothing to the circus, yet everything. Ragsy belonged to a “skinner” or
teamster, and she had a place all her own in the life of the big show.
Circus folk live in a small circle. The world is theirs to travel, yet
the world really means nothing to them; the happenings of that little
universe all their own are the ones which really count, and every
animal, every horse, every trifling incident in that circus is a part
of their lives. Ragsy played a big part.
She appeared one morning as the horse tents were being erected, one of
the innumerable dog waifs which always are about the show grounds. A
sorrel team seemed to attract her; she sat by it while the horses fed,
then when they were taken forth to parade, she went with them, trotting
beside them as though she had done it all her life. A queer, misshapen
little thing she was, of Skye terrier origin, and with an ingratiating,
“doggy” manner, which caused the driver to grin at her more than once
and call a word of encouragement as the team started back to the circus
grounds. Not that Ragsy needed it; she had turned with the team and
when they rested again in the big horse tents, there was Ragsy beside
them. That night, when the wagons were loaded and the big team had made
its two trips to the runs, Ragsy was there also, at last to brush
against the leg of the driver as he watched the loading of his stock
and prepared to crawl into the deck of the horse car above them, his
usual place of nightly abode. He started away, the plea of the dog
unnoticed, only to halt again. For she had whined and pawed at him. The
big “skinner” paused in contemplation.
“All right,” came at last. “Guess that there bunk’s big enough for me’n
you.”
That night Ragsy snoozed contentedly; she had joined the circus along
with her beloved sorrels. When dawn came, she was there beside them
again, not to leave them all day. Weeks passed. At last there came an
inspiration to the driver, and he lifted the little Skye to the back of
one of the sorrels, balancing her there for a time until she gained a
footing.
“I’ll just make a parade feature outen her,” he grinned to his fellow
skinners, and the idea worked! Ragsy fell off, but she was willing to
try again and again and again, until at last there came the time when
bugle call for parade meant as much to the dog as to the performers.
A jump to the double-trees, then to the tongue; another leap, and she
was on the back of the wheel sorrel, there to balance herself during
parade, while the crowds along the street gave credit to some circus
trainer, and the skinner, high atop his seat on the band wagon,
grinned in satisfaction. For he and Ragsy knew!
It became a matter of interest throughout the circus, that affection
of Ragsy for those sorrels. When the big eight-horse team was taken to
water, there was Ragsy. When the night hauls came, Ragsy was there too,
at last to augment her parade performance by riding wherever the big
team went. In mud or in rain, in storm or in sunshine, she never left
the big team. Those horses belonged to Ragsy as much as to the circus!
One day there came a break in Ragsy’s usual routine, that of watching
the horses wherever they went, even if only across a street. The show
was making a long jump; the stop for feeding and watering was to be a
short one, and the skinner, fearful lest Ragsy be left behind when the
“high-ball signal” sounded, decided that she must stay in the horse
cars. The dog objected. There was only one thing to do and with a
halter rope the skinner tied her in a manger, then hurried forth to his
work.
A half-hour later he returned with the horses, started up the runway,
halted, stared within, then rushed forward to come forth a moment
later, eyes averted, hands slowly knitting a picture of mute sorrow.
Another driver halted him. A nod over the shoulder, a voice gruffened
to hide the choke of it:
“I killed her. Dead--in there. Strangled tryin’ t’ get out o’ that
manger.”
They gathered from every part of the train, a community rallying to a
tragedy commensurate to the size of its little world. An actor took off
his hat, tossed a dollar into it and began to make the rounds. Within
the car, the skinner had wrapped the silent form of Ragsy in his coat
and laid it tenderly in his bunk on the deck above, to rest there until
such time as the labors of the circus might give him a chance to bury
her. That night, the show at last placed upon the lot, the skinners
gathered, silent, hesitant men, talking in a low tone as though they
were in the presence of human death instead of that of only an animal.
Some one fashioned a coffin. From the wardrobe wagon came silken and
soft materials, overflow from the making of costumes; performers
hurried from town with flowers--even to a blanket of roses--and beside
the horse tents they put Ragsy away. And unless it has been destroyed
by some one who does not know the circus heart, there still stands on
a circus lot in Southern Texas a heavy bit of yellow pine, with rough
words carved with a jackknife:
RaGsy
KiLLed Sep. 12-19.
SHe suRe Was Faithfull.
Faith--and no reward, save the glitter and spangles, and blaring of
bands; the noise of the big top, the confusion of the midway; that, it
seems, is all that the circus dog wants. And, too, that love seems to
be in the heart of every dog; the parade is always a conglomeration of
“houn’s,” traveling in the wake of the clown band wagon, or trotting
beside the horses. Nor is it necessary that the show be an outdoor
affair--just so it is a circus!
Last winter I was called back into the show business for a brief
season, that I might produce an indoor circus for a Denver lodge. It
was to be a big affair, running to nearly a hundred thousand dollars,
and it was necessary that the coming show, which was to be assembled
from all parts of the United States, have every bit of unusual
publicity possible. A member of the general committee, Ted Syman, came
forward with an idea.
“What’s the matter with a hound-dog parade, made up from mutts all over
the city?” he asked. “It’d give us a chance to carry publicity matter
through the streets, kids with banners and all that sort of thing.”
So the idea grew. There was to be a prize for the muttiest mutt dog in
town. A restaurant keeper appeared, with an offer to buy the dog for
twenty-five dollars. As a further incentive to the boys of town, the
owner and winner was to be allowed to appear at the head of the grand
entry each night with his dog. Nobody thought anything of how the mutt
himself would react; he was only a dog.
The parade was held. The mutt was selected, a woolly, squatty, pig-eyed
nondescript, dirty with the smudges of alleys and coal holes, the
muttiest mutt dog in town. The restaurant keeper bought him, for the
advertisement of it, possession to be gained at the end of the circus
week. The performance came. Dirt and all, the dog was turned over to
the clowns, four or five toy balloons attached to him, a banner tied
to his waving tail, and the clowns arranged for an escort. The first
entry came, and into the big ring trotted the mutt with the clowns, his
former boy owner beside him, the clowns trooping and frolicking about
him, and the band blaring behind him. There were lights, music, the
lifting step of horses, lumbering elephants; crowds, confusion; soon
we began to notice that the boy might be a bit late at Clown Alley for
his nightly decorations, but never the dog. For it was the dog, we saw,
that was gaining continued enjoyment out of it all. After the first
few nights it all began to pall upon the boy. But not the mutt. Twice
a night he made the circuit of that ring, banner-bedecked tail waving
in constant ecstasy, mouth open in excited panting, short legs bobbing,
eyes gleaming. Twice a night for a week; then the circus came to a
close.
Performers hurried away to begin their regular circus engagements.
Horses, performing animals, elephants and seals were loaded into
railroad cars for their trip back to winter quarters. The restaurant
keeper took his mutt and advertised it--for a day. Then the dog
disappeared.
But he did not go to the home of his former owner. Instead, one night,
nearly a week after the show was over, I happened to pass the big
doors of the darkened Civic Auditorium where the circus had been held.
Something woolly and squat, settled right against the door in waiting,
attracted my attention. I approached and called a name. It was the mutt.
I petted him and sought to call him away. In vain. I tried the door.
It was unlocked, and I opened it. We went within, the mutt and myself,
into the great, empty building, where only a few incandescents gleamed
dully to light the path of the watchman. The crowds were gone. The
dressing rooms were empty. The bandstand was devoid of brightly clothed
musicians. The big sawdust hippodrome track, as well as the rings and
stages, had disappeared. The circus was gone.
Slowly, as though in wonderment of a changed world, the mutt made the
rounds. He sniffed at the empty spaces where once the horses had been
quartered. He ran to where Snyder and Toto and Tillie, the performing
elephants, once had swayed at their ring pins. They were gone.
Downstairs he trotted, but the dressing rooms were empty and dark.
At last, as if convinced, he looked up at me and whined. I opened the
door. A moment of hesitation, then slowly, wobbling grudgingly upon
those stubby little legs, he trotted away, farther and farther, at last
to fade into the shadows. His day of glory was done.