"Well," said he, "that's one of those questions I don't know how to
answer. If you ask which lion has been the most dangerous so far, I
should say Denver, because he tore my right arm one day so badly that
they nearly had to cut it off. Still, I think Ingomar is my most
dangerous lion, although he hasn't got his teeth in me yet; he's tried,
but missed me. It doesn't matter, though, what I think, for it may be
one of these lazy, innocent-looking lions that will really kill me. They
seem tame as kittens, but you can't tell what's underneath. Suppose I
turn my back and one of them springs--why, it's all off."
Another day he said: "A man gets more confidence every time he faces an
angry lion and comes out all right. Finally he gets so sure of his power
that he does strange things. I have seen a lion coming at me and have
never moved, and the lion has stopped. I have had a lion strike at me
and the blow has just grazed my head, and have stood still, with my whip
lifted, and the lion has gone off afraid. One day in the ring a lion
caught my left arm in his teeth as I passed between two pedestals. I
didn't pull away, but stamped my foot and cried out, 'Baltimore, what do
you mean?' The stamp of my foot was the lion's cue to get off the
pedestal, and Baltimore loosed his jaws and jumped down. His habit of
routine was stronger than his desire to bite me."
Again, Bonavita explained that there is some strange virtue in carrying
in the left hand a whip which is never used. The tamer strikes with his
right-hand whip when it is necessary, but only lifts his left-hand whip
and holds it as a menace over the lion. And it is likely, Bonavita
thinks, that to strike with that reserve whip would be to dispel the
lion's idea that it stands for some mysterious force beyond his daring.
"You see, lions aren't very intelligent," said he; "they don't
understand what men are or what they want. That is our hardest work--to
make a lion understand what we want. As soon as he knows that he is
expected to sit on a pedestal he is willing enough to do it, especially
if he gets some meat; but it often takes weeks before he finds out what
we are driving at. You can see what slow brains lions have, or tigers
either, by watching them fight for a stick or a tin cup. They couldn't
get more excited over a piece of meat. One of the worst wounds I ever
got came from going into a lion's den after an overcoat that he had
dragged away from a foolish spectator who was poking it at him."
[Illustration: BONAVITA'S FIGHT WITH SEVEN LIONS IN THE RUNWAY.]
I finally got Bonavita to tell me about the time when the lion Denver
attacked him. It was during a performance at Indianapolis, in the fall
of 1900, and the trouble came at the runway end where the two circular
passages from the cages open on an iron bridge that leads to the
show-ring. Bonavita had just driven seven lions into this narrow space,
and was waiting for the attendants to open the iron-barred door, when
Denver sprang at him and set his teeth in his right arm. This stirred
the other lions, and they all turned on Bonavita; but, fortunately, only
two could reach him for the crush of bodies. Here was a tamer in sorest
need, for the weight of the lions kept the iron doors from opening and
barred out the rescuers. In the audience was wildest panic, and the
building resounded with shouts and screams and the roars of angry lions.
Women fainted; men rushed forward brandishing revolvers, but dared not
shoot; and for a few moments it seemed as if the tamer was doomed.
But Bonavita's steady nerve saved him. As Denver opened his jaws to
seize a more vital spot, the tamer drove his whip-handle far down into
his red throat, and then, with a cudgel passed in to him, beat the brute
back. The other lions followed, and this freed the iron door, which the
grooms straightway opened, and in a moment the seven lions were leaping
toward the ring as if nothing had happened. And last of the seven came
Denver, driven by Bonavita, white-faced and suffering, but the master
now, and greeted with cheers and roars of applause. No one realized how
badly he was hurt, for his face gave no sign. He bowed to the audience,
cracked his whip, and began the act as usual. As he went on he grew
weaker, but stuck to it until he had put the lions through four of their
tricks, and then he staggered out of the ring into the arms of the
doctors, who found him torn with ugly wounds that kept him for weeks in
the hospital. That, I think, is an instance of the very finest
lion-tamer spirit.
Among various meetings with tamers of animals, I recall with particular
pleasure one afternoon when my friend Newman brought to see me a tamer
famous in his day--George Arstingstall. I knew that Arstingstall was the
first man in this country to work lions, tigers, leopards, elephants,
sheep, monkeys, and various other beasts all in a great circular cage.
Also that his fame had spread across Europe and his daring feats been
shown from London to Moscow; but I did not know what a simple, modest
man he was, nor realize until then the charm of listening to a couple of
circus veterans, comrades for years, talking of the old stirring days.
Here were two men getting on to sixty, yet talking with the eagerness of
boys about their exploits and perils under fang and claw.
It was: "Say, Bill, do you remember when that bull pup caught Topsy by
the trunk and stampeded the--"
"Stampeded the whole business. Do I remember, George? Up in Boston.
Bing! bang! over the Common, and the Old Man wild! Well I guess. But,
say, George, that wasn't as bad as the stampede in Troy, when those four
elephants cleaned out the rolling-mill. Oh, what a night! Let's see.
There was Nan and--"
"And Tip."
"Yes, poor old Tip. I strangled him at Bridgeport. You remember, George,
he wouldn't take the poison. Oh, he was no fool, Tip wasn't, and I told
the Old Man we'd have to put nooses on him and cut off his wind."
"I know, Bill, the Old Man said it wasn't possible to strangle an
elephant--"
"And say, George, I had his wind shut off inside of three minutes after
the boys began to haul. Oh, you can't beat three sheave-blocks, George,
for finishing off a bad tusker. Well, this night in Troy those four
elephants went sailing through this rolling-mill, trumpeting like mad,
right over the hot iron, scaring those Irishmen blue, and then smashed
down a steep refuse bank into the mud. Oh, what looking elephants! Nan
had her legs all burned, and--"
"I know, and say, Bill, do you remember where I found Tip? Three miles
out of Troy, standing up in a corn-field sound asleep, and two little
boys on a rail fence looking at him. He'd knocked over a shanty and
smashed open a barrel of whisky--a whole barrel, Bill--and there he was
sound asleep. When I saw those little boys I made up my mind I'd found
Tip.
"'What ye lookin' at, little boys?' I sung out.
"'El'phunt, mister,' says one of the boys, sort of careless like, just
as if it was a common thing in Troy for elephants to be asleep in
corn-fields."
"I know, that's the way little boys act," remarked Newman, sagaciously.
"Say, George, tell about the time you took that car-load of animals over
the Alleghanies."
After some preliminaries, Mr. Arstingstall responded to the invitation,
and I heard a story that Victor Hugo might have turned into a
masterpiece of description.
It was back in the winter of 1874, and circus trains were not fitted up
as completely then as they are to-day. Arstingstall was in charge of a
car packed with a medley of animals--lions and tigers in cages, some
camels, some boxes of monkeys, some hyenas, a sacred bull from Tibet,
and a young male elephant recently brought from Africa and as yet
untrained. All these were on their way to Wisconsin, where the show was
to make its spring opening in a couple of weeks, during which
Arstingstall was expected to break the young elephant for driving in a
chariot race.
At one end of the car was a stove against the bitter weather, but the
elephant was chained at the other end, and as they came into the
mountain region Arstingstall noticed that the elephant was suffering
from cold, and at the first stop sent a man out for half a bucket of
whisky, which he filled up with water and gave to the shivering animal.
There is no use giving an elephant whisky unless you give him enough.
Now came a run of an hour and a half without stop, and during this time
Arstingstall was alone in the animal-car, and about as busy as he ever
expects to be on this earth. The trouble began when he unloosed the
elephant's chains to lead him nearer the stove, for it looked as if his
ears might freeze, as happens. Indeed, an elephant's ears will sometimes
freeze so hard that big pieces drop off, while a frozen tail has been
known to drop off entirely.
Against such chances Arstingstall wished to take precautions, so he led
the elephant down the car, through the jumble of animals and cages, all
the less prepared for mischief as this was rather a smallish elephant,
not over six feet at the shoulder and showing only half-grown tusks. But
they were sharp. Whether it was the whisky taking violent effect or some
sudden hatred for his keeper--at any rate, that elephant, long before he
reached the stove, set forth upon a murderous campaign the like of which
Arstingstall had never known. Before he realized the danger, he felt the
creature's trunk twisting around his neck, and he was hurled violently
to the floor. There he lay helpless, while the elephant hesitated, one
might fancy, whether to kneel on him and crush the life out or run him
through with his tusks.
In that moment's pause Arstingstall made a last despairing effort, did
the only thing he could do, sunk his teeth into the fleshy finger that
curls around the end of an elephant's trunk and covers the opening so
that no invading mouse may enter and work destruction. In all an
elephant's great body, there is no spot so sensitive as this finger,
and, with a scream of pain, the animal loosed his hold, whereupon
Arstingstall sprang behind one of the cages. But the elephant was after
him in a moment, swinging his trunk and trumpeting black murder.
Arstingstall dodged behind the camels, behind the sacred bull, behind
the stove. The elephant followed him everywhere, profiting by his
smallness, and where he could not go himself he sent his curling trunk.
Arstingstall, out of breath, climbed on top of the lion's cage, thinking
to find some respite, but the red-ended trunk pursued him. Once more he
tried biting tactics, and as the reaching finger swept along the cage
top he seized it again in his teeth, and this time took a piece clean
out of it, which was not pleasant for him, and less so for the elephant.
Now came a truce of some minutes, during which the elephant put forth
screaming challenges, but kept at a distance, and allowed Arstingstall
to reach the bunks beside the monkeys' cages. From the topmost bunk
opened a trap-door in the car roof, the only exit, as the sliding
side-doors were bolted. He might escape here to the back of the train,
but that would leave a mad elephant in possession of the car, a thing
not to be thought of. Thus far the elephant's rage had been directed
solely against his keeper, but, the keeper gone, he might turn to
destroying the other animals, might kill the sacred bull, or smash open
the lions' cages--there was no telling what he might do. Arstingstall
saw that his duty lay in that car. Whatever came, he must--
Crash! came the elephant again, and the lower berth was a wreck. And now
the din became infernal with the roaring and bellowing and chattering of
the other animals. Arstingstall did some quick thinking. There was sure
death before him, unless he could somehow conquer this frenzied
creature, whose rushes, coming harder and harder, must soon batter down
the car, for all its stout oak timbers. Oh, for a weapon, a prod of some
sort, a--like a flash the thought came; down at the other end was the
pitchfork used for throwing fodder. There was his chance; he must get
that pitchfork.
For the next hour it was a fight, man against elephant, for the winning
and holding of that pitchfork. There was the whole story, and some day I
hope to give its details, the moves and counter-moves, the strategy of
brute against human, the conflict of brain against crude force.
Arstingstall won, but by what patience and quiet nerve he alone knows.
Foot by foot, cage by cage, he worked his way down the length of that
car, the elephant now on the defensive, one would say, as if he realized
what was planning, the man watching, resolute, biding his time, ready
for a sudden rush, forced now and again to use his teeth upon that
murderous trunk.
Finally, he got the pitchfork, and for a moment--what a moment that
was!--held four prongs of flashing steel before the elephant's eyes,
red-burning, unsubmissive. It was all over now, the battle was won, the
animal knew, and stood still awaiting the blow. Down came the weapon,
and right through the trunk went those four sharp points, down into the
timbers under foot. Then Arstingstall braced the handle under a
wall-beam, so that the elephant was nailed fast to the floor, nose down.
And then the brute squealed his submission.
Three weeks later Arstingstall drove that elephant, perfectly broken, in
a chariot race, and for years after there was not a better little bull
in the herd than he.
IV
WE SEE MR. BOSTOCK MATCHED AGAINST A WILD LION AND HEAR ABOUT THE TIGER
RAJAH
WHENEVER I made the round of cages with Mr. Bostock I was struck by the
fierce behavior of a certain male lion with brown-and-yellow
mane,--"Young Wallace," they called him,--who would set up a horrible
snarling as soon as we came near, and rush at the bars as if to tear
them down. And no matter how great the crowd, his wicked yellow eyes
would always follow Bostock, and his deep, purring roar would continue
and break into furious barks if the tamer approached the bars. Then his
jaws would open and the red muzzle curl back from his tusks, and again
and again he would strike the floor with blows that would crush a horse.
"Doesn't love me, does he?" said Bostock, one day.
"What's the matter with him?" I asked.
"Why, nothing; only he's a wild lion--never been tamed, you know; and I
took him in the ring one day. He hasn't forgotten it--have you old boy?
Hah!" Bostock stamped his foot suddenly, and Young Wallace crouched
back, snarling still, a picture of hatred and fear.
"Yes," went on Bostock, "he's wild enough. You see, after the fire, I
had to get animals from pretty much everywhere, and get 'em quick. Did
some lively cabling, I can tell you; and pretty soon there were lions
and tigers and leopards and--oh, everything from sacred bulls down to
snakes, chasing across the ocean, and more than half of them had been
loose in the jungle six months ago. It was a case of hustle, and we took
what they sent us. Then we had fun breaking 'em in. Ask Madame Morelli
if we didn't. She's in the hospital now from the claws of that fellow."
He pointed to a sleepy-looking jaguar.
"Tell you how I came to take this wild lion into the ring. I had a
press-agent who had been announcing out West what a wonder I was with
wild beasts, and how I wasn't afraid of anything on legs, and so on.
That was all very well while I was in Baltimore; but when I joined my
other show after the fire, of course I had to live up to my reputation.
And when they got up a traveling men's benefit out in Indianapolis and
asked me to go into the ring with Young Wallace, why, there wasn't
anything to do but go in. It wasn't quite so funny, though, as it
seemed, for I might as well have taken a lion fresh from the wilds of
Africa." Mr. Bostock smiled at the memory.
"Well, I did the thing, and got through all right. Young Wallace hasn't
forgotten what happened to him. I got the best of him by a trick: had a
little shelter cage placed inside the big arena cage, and at first I
stood in the small one, and let the lion come at me. Oh, you'd better
believe he came! I thought sure he'd jump clean over the thing and land
on me; for there was no roof to my cage--only sides of wire netting. He
didn't quite do it, though; and as soon as I saw he was getting rattled
I stepped out quick and went at him hard with whip and club. And I drove
him all over the ring, and the people went crazy, for he was the maddest
lion you ever saw.
"That was all right as far as it went, but the people wanted more. They
got to be out-and-out bloodthirsty there in Indianapolis. Wanted me to
go in the ring with Rajah, that big tiger. See, over there! Come up,
Rajah. Beauty, isn't he? Doesn't pay any special attention to me, does
he? Nearly killed me, just the same. Look!" He lifted his cap and showed
wide strips of plaster on his head.
"Point about Rajah was that he'd killed one of my keepers a couple of
weeks before. Poor fellow got in his cage by mistake. And now these
Indianapolis folks wanted to see me handle him. Between you and me, this
keeper wasn't the first man Rajah had killed, and I didn't care much for
the job. As for my wife--well, you can imagine how _she_ felt when she
heard I was going in with Rajah.
"On the morning of the performance I decided to have a rehearsal, and
called on a few picked men to help me. I knew by the way he had killed
his keeper that Rajah would go at my head if he attacked me at all, so I
rigged up a mask of iron wire, and wore this strapped over my head like
a little barrel. Then I drove him into the arena and began, while the
others looked on anxiously. It's queer, sir, but that tiger went through
his tricks as nice as you please, back and forth, up on his pedestal and
down again, everything just as he used to do in the old days before he
went bad. Never balked, never turned on me; just as good as gold.
[Illustration: "RAJAH'S" ATTACK UPON BONAVITA IN THE RUNWAY.]
"Soon as I was satisfied I drove him across the bridge and down the
runway toward his den. I came about a dozen feet behind him, carrying a
long wooden shield, as we generally do in a narrow space. Rajah reached
his cage all right, and went in. You see, he couldn't go down the runway
any farther, for the door opening outward barred the passage. Behind
that door I had stationed a keeper, with orders to close it as soon as
Rajah was inside; but Rajah went in so silently that the keeper didn't
know it, the peep-holes in the door being too high for him to see very
well. The result was that the cage door stood open for a few seconds
after the tiger had gone in. It seems a little thing, but it nearly cost
me my life; for when I came up Rajah's head was right back of the open
door, and when I reached out my hand to close the door he sprang at me,
and in a second had me down, with his teeth in my arm and his claws
digging into my head through openings in the mask.
"Then you'd better believe there was a fight in that runway! The keepers
rushed in; Bonavita rushed in. They shot at him with revolvers, they
jabbed him with irons, they pounded at him with clubs; and one of the
blows that Rajah dodged knocked me senseless. Well, they got me out
finally. I guess the mask saved my life. But I didn't take Rajah into
the ring that evening, and Rajah won't be seen in the ring any more.
He's made trouble enough. Why, the things I could tell you about that
tiger would fill a book."
Some of these things he did tell me, for I brought the talk back to
Rajah whenever the chance offered. I well remember, for instance, the
occasion when I heard how Rajah once got out of his cage and chased a
quagga--one of those queer little animals that are half zebra and half
mule. It was late at night, and we had entered the runway, Mr. Bostock
and I, after the performance, for he wanted me to realize the perils of
this narrow boarded lane that circles all the dens and leads the lions
to the ring. It is indeed a terrifying place--a low, dimly lighted
passage, curving constantly, so that you see ahead scarcely twenty feet,
and are always turning a slow corner, always peering ahead uneasily and
listening! What is that? A soft tread? The glow of greenish eyeballs?
Who can tell when a bolt may slip or a board give way? So many things
have happened in these runways! Of course a lion has no business to be
out of his den, but--but suppose he is? Suppose you meet
him--now--there!
Well, it was here that I heard the story. Bonavita, it appears, was
standing on the bridge one morning when there arose a fearful racket in
the runway, and, looking in, he saw the quagga tearing along toward him.
He concluded that some one had unfastened the door, and was just
preparing to check the animal, when around the curve came Rajah in full
pursuit. Bonavita stepped back, drew his revolver, and, as the tiger
rushed past, fired a blank cartridge, thinking thus to divert him from
the quagga. But Rajah paid not the slightest heed, and in long bounds
came out into the arena hard after the terrified quadruped, which was
galloping now with the speed of despair. A keeper who was sweeping
clambered up the iron sides and anxiously watched the race from the top.
Bonavita, powerless to interfere, watched from the bridge.
[Illustration: THE TIGER "RAJAH" KICKED BY THE QUAGGA.]
Of all races ever run in a circus this was the most remarkable. It was a
race for life, as the quagga knew and the tiger intended. Five times
they circled the arena, Rajah gaining always, but never enough for a
spring. In the sixth turn, however, he judged the distance right, and
straightway a black-and-yellow body shot through the air in true aim at
the prey. Whereupon the quagga did the only thing a quagga _could_
do--let out both hind legs in one straight, tremendous kick; and they do
say that a quagga can kick the eyes out of a fly. At any rate, in this
case a pair of nervous little heels caught the descending tiger squarely
under the lower jaw, and put him to sleep like a nice little lullaby.
And that was the end of it. The quagga trotted back to its cage,
Bonavita put up his revolver, the frightened sweeper climbed down from
the bars, and Rajah was hauled back ignominiously to his den.
Here we have three instances showing the extreme importance of little
things in a menagerie. A keeper opens door No. 13 instead of door No.
14, and is straightway killed. A screw is loose in a bolt fastening,
and, presto! a tiger is at large. A watcher at a peep-hole looks away
for a moment, and a life goes into jeopardy. It is always so; and I will
let Mr. Bostock tell how a little thing gave Rajah his first longing to
kill.
"It was several years ago," said he, "when I was running a wagon show in
England. I remember we were about a mile and a half out of a certain
town when this thing happened. For some reason Rajah had been
transferred to a bear-wagon, and we ought to have examined it more
carefully, for bears are the worst fellows in the world to damage a cage
by ripping up the timbers; it seems as if nothing can resist their claws
and teeth. And this particular cage was in such bad shape that Rajah
managed to get out of it. I knew something must be wrong when I saw the
big elephant-wagon that headed the procession go tearing away with its
six horses on a dead run under the driver's lash. No wonder the driver
was scared, for he had turned his head and seen the two draft-horses
that followed him down on the ground, with Rajah tearing at one of them,
and the other one dead.
"It wasn't a pretty sight when we got there, and it wasn't an easy job,
either, capturing Rajah. I don't know what we should have done if it
hadn't been for a long-haired fellow in the show called 'Mustang Ned,'
who came up with a coil of rope and lassoed the tiger. Then we tangled
him up in netting, and finally got him into one of the shifting-cages.
But after that he was never the same tiger. You wouldn't think there was
a time when Rajah used to ride around the tent on an elephant's back,
with only a little black boy to guard him!"
"What, outside the iron ring?"
"Yes, sir, right among the women and children. He did that twice a day
for over a year. Might be doing it yet if the black boy hadn't been so
careful of his white trousers."
"His white trousers?"
"That's right. You see, this boy rode on the elephant, behind Rajah, and
he wore long black boots and a fine white suit. Made quite a picture.
Only he didn't like to rub his trousers against the tiger, for an
animal's back is naturally oily; so he used to tuck his legs under a
lion's skin that Rajah rode on, and wrap it around him like a
carriage-robe.